


Triskelion

by lheadley



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, More Sterek, Scott & Stiles bromance plus, Slow Build, Threesome - M/M/M, Top Stiles Stilinski, research Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:13:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 55,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lheadley/pseuds/lheadley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles had an inquiring mind. Research was what he did. His research into the Triskelion tattoed onto Derek's back and engraved onto his family's trunk of werewolf restraints uncovered some startling truths the meaning of the three swirls. But for all his research Stiles could not bring the ultimate truth to light. That needed a different sort of insight, from a different sort of person.</p><p>Emotionally Sterek, physically three way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An inquiring mind

Triskelion

Stiles’s mother had said he had an “inquiring mind”. As long as Stiles could remember, he had always wanted to know answers. From the age of two, when he had been able to articulate enough to make himself understood, he had pestered his parents with questions on anything and everything – until he had started asking why his mother kept going into hospital, and what the “tests” were for. He had had to do tests at school, on math and history and English, but he did not know of any adults who had to do tests. When Stiles had asked his father about his mother’s tests and whether she was getting good marks, his father had started crying. Stiles stopped asking his father questions then. He had asked Scott, but Scott hadn’t known either – and when Scott had asked his mother, she hadn’t said anything. She did have a talk with Stiles’s parents, and then his parents had had a talk with Stiles. And that was when Stiles’s world started to collapse.

When he went to see his mother, just before the end, Stiles just stood by her bedside in silence. He had known that this was all his fault. If he had not kept worrying her with questions, she would not have become stressed and thin and ill, and would not be lying in a hospital bed with a tube in her arm and a machine beeping quietly in the background. Stiles thought he could see the blame in his father’s eyes, when he occasionally looked up at Stiles from the other side of the hospital bed where he was holding his wife’s hand. But then his mother had spoken to him – softly, because it was an effort for her to speak now, and that must be Stiles’s fault too. He must have worn her out, answering him for the six years since he had learned to talk. 

Stiles’s mother had told him how much she loved him, and how proud she was of what he was becoming. She said Stiles had to take care of his father when she was gone – she would be looking after them as well, but from a long way away. It was down to Stiles to look after his dad. Stiles had remembered how she had then leaned slightly towards him, and holding his hand had said with a firm insistence that Stiles had unique talents, a unique mind, and he must never be ashamed to use those talents to the full. “Keep inquiring” she had said. “Keep asking questions. And follow whatever interests you, whatever makes you happy. Don’t let anyone stop you from forging your own path. But above all, make sure you make the most of life.”

Stiles had promised her, but falteringly. He had worn her out with his questions; she had often said he was wearing her out with his questions, so how could he continue asking questions? Stiles had suddenly lost control, and with the onset of what had been his first panic attack had started sobbing on his mother’s bed, saying how sorry he was that he had caused this. And his mother had calmed him down, and told him not to be silly, that none of this was his fault, that he had done more to make her feel better than anything that the doctors could do. And Stiles had eventually calmed down. But he had never, truly, believed his mother.

 

After the funeral, where Stiles sat in the front pew wedged between his father and Scott, and had not heard anything or been aware of anyone other than the two people next to him, Stiles went to stay with Mrs McCall. He stayed in Scott’s room, and talked only to Scott – and he said very little even to him. Then after two days Stiles began to think of what his mother had said to him. It seemed important, very important, to cling onto his mother by doing what she had asked. Stiles had gone downstairs for the first time since the funeral, with Scott right behind him with a hand on his shoulder for support. Stiles very politely thanked Mrs McColl for looking after him – because his mother had always stressed the importance of manners. He had then said he needed to go home and take care of his dad. 

When Stiles got home, he had made his dad dinner. What he had actually made was a bowl of cereal, because Stiles did not know how to make anything else. And he had taken it into his dad, and sat with him while he ate. Stiles knew that he could not just keep making cereal. His mother had always made sure Stiles ate more than cereal, and his mother knew what she was doing. So after his father had fallen asleep on the couch, Stiles had gone to the computer in the dining room (which Stiles was not supposed to touch without one of his parents being there, but Stiles was sure his mother was there somewhere). Once the computer had warmed up he had started searching for simple recipes, and then information on diet and nutrition, and what healthy eating involved. And Stiles learned that he could ask questions without wearing his father out, and get all the answers he needed. And so Stiles started doing what his mother had asked, and took care of his dad.

 

Stiles’s mind was not exactly random. It was focused, but occasionally focused in odd directions. Stiles was not so much a generalist – there were gaping holes in his knowledge. Stiles thought of himself as a multiple specialist. He would not rest until he had exhausted the mine of information on a specific topic, and then he would go in search of another seam. Stiles liked to think of his mind as being like the lightbikes on Tron. He would be hurtling along one path, feverishly absorbing whatever information he could get, and then something would happen to cause him to shift to another path and he would hurtle along that with exactly the same enthusiasm and purpose until he had the answer he needed. When someone in his online gaming community had mentioned the “lowest circle of Hell”, Stiles had not stopped until he had read the complete works of Dante. When Lydia had told him that she would be winning the Fields Medal, Stiles had researched the process by which it was awarded, and had even started in on some of Terry Tao’s papers, as he was a local (ish) winner. And when Scott had been bitten, Stiles had been ceaseless in his search for information on werewolves. The first, frantic Google search had widened out – to tracking down Dr Fenris, to reading through volumes of lore and information. Stiles had reluctantly come to the conclusion that there was no cure, and that even had Scott killed Peter himself he would not have been cured. Stiles was pretty sure that if Scott had killed Peter it would have destroyed Scott - not werewolf Scott, but human Scott. Scott believed he had to save everyone - it was exhausting. But closing that avenue of research did not mean excluding other turnings that the lightbike of Stiles’s mind could take. Any scrap of information he could get on werewolves, he would pursue. 

Which, in an indirect sort of a way was how Stiles came to be staring at the naked torso of Derek Hale, rhythmically moving up and down as its owner did chin-ups on a door frame, two weeks after the showdown with Gerard.


	2. Dog walking and other issues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When did you last walk the dog?” Scott still looked blank, though that might have been the previous blank look just carrying on. “When did you last take little Scotty for some exercise?” Stiles gestured towards Scott’s groin area to underscore the point.

It had begun a little over a week after Allison and Scott had broken up. Stiles had been in research mode, focused on finding out more about the blue eyed werewolf Jackson seemed to have become – not that a douche like Jackson deserved this much attention from anyone, least of all Stiles. But it was better than brooding about Lydia. 

After a particularly long and tortuous trawl through the results of a “Search It” web enquiry, Stiles had stretched to ease a crick in his back, and spun himself around in his desk chair – because spinning around in a desk chair was fun and did not need any further justification. Somewhere between the 100th and 120th degree of the spin, Scott had come into view, standing by Stiles’s bedroom door - which had struck Stiles as odd. Not Scott being in his room, which was so very far from being odd. But Scott standing without having said anything or done anything to get Stiles’s attention was definitely odd. Scott had been fiddling with the small plastic skeleton attached to the back of Stiles’s door, with a glazed, abstracted look on his face. That was when Stiles had realised something was wrong. Not the glazed look, because Scott could achieve that through any word which triggered an association with Allison – words like ”brunette”, “bowling”, or for some absolutely never to be investigated reason “tapioca”. But if Scott was fiddling with the skeleton, something was seriously wrong.

The skeleton was a sort of totem for Scott and Stiles and their relationship. Stiles kept it because it reminded him of how awesome Scott really was when it mattered. It had been from Halloween, the year Stiles’s mother had died. Stiles and Scott had planned to go ‘Trick or Treating’ as Batman and Robin – Stiles would be Batman of course, because Stiles was always Batman. But then everything had changed and Stiles had had to stay and look after his dad, though his dad had tried to make him go. So Scott had gone out without Stiles, and his mother had made him a new costume at the last minute (because Robin without Batman would be silly). And after he had been round every house in the neighbourhood, Scott had come to see Stiles with a sack full of candy, without having eaten a single piece all evening. He had tried to give Stiles everything, and when Stiles had refused he had split it exactly in two (deliberating carefully over the relative values of different brands). And then he had put the skeleton (a rather desperate improvised accessory of Melissa McCall’s for Scott’s last minute costume) on top of Stiles’s pile. Because Scott may not be the best with words, but he was awesome when it came to gestures. 

The skeleton reminded Stiles of who Scott really was. Scott was not selfish – not like Jackson. He was not self-absorbed, as Lydia could be. Even Stiles could acknowledge that Lydia was somewhat self-absorbed on occasion, maybe 62% of the time. But Scott tended to project his own emotions onto everyone else. When Scott was happy, he could not understand why everyone else was not just as happy, and he tended not to notice if they were not. Stiles secretly envied Scott his view of the world – it was uncomplicated if nothing else. But if something penetrated Scott’s bubble, if something was not right and Scott realised it, Scott would do everything he possibly could to make it better. Which was why Scott was an awesome best friend. Stiles was not sure what the skeleton meant to Scott, but to Stiles it was an absurdly important symbol, if also a somewhat tacky Halloween decoration.

Scott only fiddled with the skeleton if something was really wrong, and if he really needed Stiles, and so Stiles had stopped his chair spin (after another revolution).

“Dude?” There was a slight question in Stiles’s tone.

“Hey, Stiles”. Scott’s tone was not right. It was hard to judge these days, what with the new alpha inflection coming and going, but Scott did not sound like Scott. He also seemed twitchy, shivering and avoiding eye contact with Stiles. He was like a puppy that had rolled in something foul smelling and knew it had a bath coming. But Stiles was pretty sure Scott had not rolled in anything foul smelling, at least not recently. And Scott was not adverse to baths if there was plenty of bubble bath.

“Hey, bro, what’s wrong?”. Stiles was worried. Scott had been nowhere close to this level of agitation since that first post-bite full moon, and the whole breaking out of handcuffs thing (and kissing Lydia thing, which Stiles was mainly over. Almost over. Or at the very least prepared to overlook).

“I don’t know”. 

Stiles looked apprehensively at Scott as he began pacing back and forth. Stiles’s room was not really large enough to facilitate pacing back and forth, and there was furniture that might be vulnerable if things turned ugly. It had been difficult enough to explain to this dad why he had needed a new desk chair. “A wild chipmunk broke in and savaged the back of my chair with its teeth” was not the best excuse Stiles had ever come up with. Perhaps he should cut back on watching Cartoon Network so much. Switch to MTV, or something. 

“Scott, dude, you are freaking me out. Chill. Tell me what is wrong.”

Scott sat of the edge of Stiles’s bed, opposite the desk, and began playing with the hem of his long sleeved T-shirt. “I don’t know. Stiles, you have to help me. Ever since that night…” Scott looked with puppy eyes at Stiles – he still felt guilty for what had happened with Gerard, though Stiles knew deep down it was hardly Scott’s fault. “For the last week I can’t focus, or settle, or calm down. Is this an Alpha thing? Or it is”, Scott paused, flushed, and gripped the edge of Stiles’s mattress with some force and Stiles sincerely hoped without claws; “or is it because Allison and I are temporarily apart?”. Scott’s stress on “temporarily” was emphatic, as if Scott was defying his best friend to contradict him. But Stiles was rather attached to all four of his limbs, and very attached to other parts of his anatomy, and had no intention of contradicting the newly minted alpha on this particular point. If Scott said it was temporary, then what else could it be but temporary?

“You have been growing into the alpha role for a while, Scott. I don’t see that being a part of the problem.” Stiles pondered, getting up from his chair to walk as he thought through the issue. “It is not frustration?”

Scott looked blank.

Stiles sighed. “As you and Allison are temporarily” (he stressed the word) “on a short term break type thing, I mean? When did you last walk the dog?” Scott still looked blank, though that might have been the previous blank look just carrying on. “When did you last take little Scotty for some exercise?” Stiles gestured towards Scott’s groin area to underscore the point.

“Oh!” Scott turned red. This was one of those things he was surprisingly prudish about. “Umm, I don’t think it is frustration.”

Stiles was not letting him off that easily. He stared at Scott with raised eyebrows. Information was clearly required. 

“A couple of times a day, sometimes three” Scott mumbled.

“And the last time was?”

“About an hour ago”

“Seriously dude? I hope you showered before coming over here.” Scott shifted a little uneasily on Stiles’s bed, but Stiles did not notice. His mind was whirring away, chasing down the various possibilities. “The full moon is coming, isn’t it?”

“I can cope with the full moon, thank you Stiles”

“You could. But Allison was your anchor – is, I meant, is your anchor. And that anchor has become…” Stiles searched for a diplomatic way of putting this “somewhat less attached of late, am I right?”

“Yes”. Scott had that petulant tone to his voice he always used when Stiles forced him to acknowledge some kind of truth that he did not want to acknowledge.

“I think that’s it. The full moon is a couple of days away, and you are feeling a little less anchored than normal. This is totally manageable. We will chain you up like we did the first time - it will be easier too now your mom knows. And I still have your water bowl around here somewhere.”

Scott refused to be consoled. “I am not sure it is that, Stiles. It does not feel like the pull of the moon. And even if it is the whole chaining up thing did not work too well, remember?”

Stiles’s mind kept racing ahead, leaping over problems with ease. “Not an issue. I’ll get some tried and tested restraints.”

 

Derek’s new hangout was a vast improvement on the rail depot. For one thing it was legally rented to him. Stiles laboured up the stairs to the top floor of the converted warehouse – at least it was converted. Human habitation was considered acceptable here. Werewolf habitation was probably not considered acceptable, but then the realtor probably had not had that as an option on their checklist.

Stiles pushed at Derek’s door, a little surprised to find it open. The open plan living area spread out before him. Two chairs and a bookcase were the only non-fitted furniture items. And opposite the main door, there was a half-naked Sourwolf, with his back to Stiles, doing chin ups on a door frame. 

Stiles stood staring. The motion was more than a little mesmerising - and OK maybe it was specifically Derek's body in motion that was mesmerising. Derek’s muscles flexed with a hypnotic regularity, and the tattoo across his bare back stretched and then sort of scrunched up with every movement. How on earth did Derek get a tattoo, anyway? Wouldn’t it just heal over? Did he have to re-tattoo himself? Maybe it wasn’t a proper tattoo. Maybe it was one of those temporary transfer tattoos, painted onto his skin. But it did not look like that. The roiling of Derek’s muscles – seriously, the dude could not have an ounce of bodyfat on him – would surely have shrugged off any transfer tattoo. And Derek was just powering ahead with his movements. There was no stopping. Stiles was becoming fascinated by Derek’s shoulder muscles, which moved in a regular, repeated pattern and just exuded strength and power and arousing-type pheromones that Stiles was going to completely ignore now before things got out of hand. He was going to stop staring, to lower his eyes too… sweet mother, were those jeans painted on? Did Derek just paint his ass muscles a dark navy and assume no one would notice? Stiles was occasionally known to wear tight trousers himself, mainly because neither he nor his dad were especially adept at clothes shopping (T shirts always the exception). But nothing Stiles owned came close to being that figure hugging. Those jeans were an invitation to hug Derek’s figure, and OK this was not a train of thought to pursue right now. 

Derek, with an aggressive final chin up, dropped to the floor, and turned to acknowledge Stiles’s presence. On which point – why had there been no earlier acknowledgement? Stiles’s Jeep was audible to normal humans from two blocks away, and after climbing four stories worth of stairs Stiles was reasonably sure that his scent was ‘intensified’. In an awesome, manly exertion with Zegna, not Armani, aftershave overlay type of a way. Had Derek kept him waiting, flaunting those muscles at him deliberately? Rude.

“Stiles”.

“Derek”.

Derek grabbed his T shirt from where it sat on the floor, but did not put it on. That was a little odd too – almost as if Derek had suddenly decided to do chin ups on the spur of the moment, for some reason, and had decided to do them shirtless, for some reason, and had carried on doing them even when he heard Stiles arriving, for some reason. Stiles pulled his mind back from that track – he had business to attend to.

“So, Scott has a… problem”.

Derek’s face was impassive, though there was a slight twitch in his left pec muscle which might have been an expression of surprise. Or of interest. Or, you know, just a demonstration of his general ability to flex his muscles at the slightest provocation.

“He and Allison are” - Stiles used airquotes, as he felt the occasion called for it and Scott was not here to see him - “on a break”.

Derek’s face was still impassive, and there was no pectoral activity this time.

“And Allison is, or was, his anchor. And he has been feeling really agitated lately, and so we think that there might be a problem on Friday. And he snapped through the last set of handcuffs I got, and now he is an alpha it is likely to be even worse, so I wondered if I could borrow a more robust set of restraints from you? Unless, you know, you were planning a little light bondage on Friday night”

The last line had been some light hearted banter on Stiles’s part. That he had absolutely meant not to say out loud, but the whole brain-mouth thing had never been Stiles’s strong point. Derek’s biceps seemed to flex menacingly. He threw his T shirt behind him and it fell in a crumpled heap on the floor. Stiles felt he might adopt the same strategy as the T-shirt. Crumpling in a heap to the floor seemed like a good plan for self-preservation, as Derek strode towards him.


	3. Sourwolves and sigils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The eternal question of “boxers or briefs?” was answered

As Derek paced towards Stiles, all menace and muscles and glower, Stiles felt his knees sag a little. He also felt a definite hardening of his dick, which was just so terribly, terribly wrong. He should not be feeling in the slightest bit aroused by the sight of a bad tempered if half naked alpha stalking towards him with murderous intent glowing in his eyes and every bit of dark, manly stubble bristling with offense. Stiles licked his lips nervously, and prepared to die like a man. Or run screaming out the door. Whichever.

With a slight snarl Derek suddenly veered off to one side, and swung himself up the spiral staircase to Sitles’s left. Stiles had never been up there, but he assumed it led to Derek’s bedroom. Stiles wondered if he was supposed to follow. His brain was yelling “no”. Other parts of his body were raising plausible arguments in favour of following. He should find out what a werewolf’s bedroom looked like, because one never knew when that information might come in handy. He should never stop trying to get answers to questions, after all. Like, what werewolves wore when in they were in bed. And how large their beds might be. 

Stiles stood, a picture of indecision, and took a faltering half step towards the stairs, when his movement was suddenly arrested by the sound of Derek coming down the stairs. Moments later, Derek appeared carrying a huge trunk like it weighed nothing. His arms were pressed against the sides of his body as he manhandled – wolfhandled? – the trunk down the staircase. The action showed off his biceps to their fullest advantage, as he had clearly not bothered to find another shirt while upstairs. Clothing seemed to be strictly optional at Casa Sourwolf. Which was just great from Stiles’s point of view. 

Derek’s glower seemed to have been enhanced by the exertion, and Stiles reversed his faltering half step, and then went back another couple of steps for good measure. Derek’s particularly scary half sneer seemed to flicker around his mouth. He deposited the trunk on the stripped floorboards of the apartment floor. There was heavy clunking sound of metal on metal that sounded rather promising.

Stiles watched as Derek knelt, back towards him, to undo the locks to the trunk. The muscles of his back seemed to be flexing again – was it really necessary to flex one’s back muscles so much just to undo a couple of locks? Stiles mouth was feeling dry, and there seemed to be more than the normal amount of adrenaline running through his system. He edged forwards to stand closer to Derek, looking down on the broad expanse of his shoulders, that tattoo again (definitely not a transfer) the tight V shape of his torso and the muscled planes of his back as it tapered towards his jeans, and, holy shit….

Werewolves apparently went commando.

Derek’s jeans were taut around his ass cheeks, but the waistband was somewhat looser, and from his vantage point Stiles could see that the smooth run of pale flesh was uninterrupted. The base of Derek’s spine was visible if somewhat shadowed by the dark denim. The eternal question of “boxers or briefs?” was answered with a resounding “neither”. Was this a general werewolf thing, or a general alpha thing, or a general Derek thing? Perhaps this was why Scott was feeling so much discomfort – he was wearing briefs when he should have been running free in his Adidas sweatpants. But Stiles rather thought this was a matter of personal preference on the part of Derek.

The lid of the trunk flew up, and Stiles quickly raised his head and tried to control his increasingly laboured breathing. An impressive array of chains, manacles, and what looked like early medieval torture devices lay within. On the inner lid of the trunk, the symbol that was tattooed on Derek’s back was repeated. Stiles clutched gratefully at a topic for conversation – anything to distract Derek from the rather noticeable swelling in Stiles’s jeans, and anything to distract Stiles from the eternal contemplation of Derek’s butt.

“Hey, that’s the same symbol as on your back”.

Derek did not look especially impressed at Stiles’s sensational ability to observe things with the observing powers that he undoubtedly possessed.

“Yes”.

“Why do you have a Triskele on your back and on your case?”

“It is called a Triskelion”. Derek did not sound in the mood to share, but distraction still seemed to be something of a priority as the party in Stiles’s pants was showing no signs of calming down just at the moment.

“The worlds are synonymous, Sourwolf. Different versions of the Celtic dialect”.

Derek looked somewhat taken aback at that. “It is a symbol my family uses”.

“Your family has a sigil?”

Derek looked even more startled. “You know what a sigil is?”

Stiles was nettled by that. “Yes, thank you Mr Raging Sarcasm. If you ever stepped out into the real world, or the real world of online gaming, you would know that you are in the presence of the Grand Wizard Stiles the Silent. And you would be rendered suitably awed and deferential by that fact. So, yes, I know what a sigil is.”

Derek did not seem to be as awed and deferential as he should. “Stiles, the Silent?”. There was a definite note of derision there.

Stiles was not going to take this sort of implied criticism. Actually, barely implied. “Yes, Stiles the Silent. Grand Wizard. And why is your family sigil a Triskele or a Triskelion?”

Derek shrugged his shoulders, allowing Stiles to see the full effect of the muscles from a different vantage point. It was not helping with Stiles’s control issues.

“No idea. It is just our symbol. And there was a rhyme that went with it”.

Stiles bit back on his lips. “Really? A rhyme? Was there a dance routine to go with it as well?”

Derek glowered again, and Stiles took a half step to the side. 

“Tell me. I promise not to laugh”.

Derek just glowered again.

“Pleeeease Derek. You know I need to know this stuff. Werewolf lore is important. It is what I do. Aside from being bait it is the only real skill I bring to the party. Unless lacrosse ever becomes useful in some way.”

Derek humphed out a sound, and then grudgingly recited in a slightly sing song manner:

“The true Hale alpha can only mean,  
Master of the three seas of the Tree Cassyn”.

Stiles looked a little bemused. “What on earth is that supposed to mean? What is a Cassyn Tree? And why three seas? There are seven seas. And why would a werewolf be master of the sea anyway? You don’t like getting your paws wet. And you sank like a stone the last time we went swimming together.”

Derek glowered some more. The one where his eyebrows drew into a long line of displeasure, and his front teeth glinted a bit.

“Every beta had to recite that on the first wolf moon after they came of age and could control the shift. And then they would get the wolfsbane tattoo.” 

That explained the tattoo versus werewolf healing deal. But the whole thing struck a chord with Stiles. He could not remember why it was familiar, and then his mind went through one of its sudden turns, the way it did, and memory came flooding back.

“It is totally Sherlock Holmes”. 

Derek looked bewildered and a little alarmed, like Stiles’s comments were non-sequiturs and proof of his insanity, when in fact Stiles’s comments were completely logical and proof of the awesomeness of his research skills.

“The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual. Google it. Or read some basic literature. The rhyme must have some meaning. What is it?”

Derek shrugged. “I have no idea what it means. And I have no idea what you mean. I seriously question if you know what you mean. Ever.”

Stiles sighed. “The Musgrave Ritual. Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes. Each Musgrave heir had to recite a riddle which was in fact a clue to the location of the Stuart crown jewels. It was a way of passing on knowledge from one generation to the next”

“You read something other than comics?” Derek’s derisive tone was back.

“God, yes you Sarcastic Sourwolf. I have read Sherlock Holmes. And I totally ship Johnlock.” Stiles was getting irritated at the put downs. “Now how about handing over a robust set on manacles and I will leave you to contemplate your collection of leather jackets in peace”.

Derek looked a shade disappointed at the abrupt ending of the conversation, as he handed over a sturdy set of chains and cuffs.


	4. Target practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yes, do it for me, cum all over yourself you dirty little wolfman” Stiles muttered

Stiles drove home in his Jeep in the gloom of the twilight, having a conversation with himself in his head. Probably in his head. Mainly in his head. 

“Stupid Sourwolf, and his stupid putdowns.” Stiles had to brake sharply for a pedestrian crossing the road. He did not want to run over a voter so close to his Dad’s election. If it had been a couple of years off there may have been some leeway. Stiles was annoyed, bordering on irate, with a possible escalation to mad. He was not a kid. Derek was always treating him as if he was eleven years old, but it just was not fair. And, OK, whining that it was “not fair” made him sound eleven, but he was a man now, and had the genital hair growth to prove it. Stiles’s Jeep shuddered as he shifted into second, but Stiles barely noticed. It was clear Derek saw him as some kind of juvenile to be patronised, and did not appreciate that Stiles was a serious force to be reckoned with – number two in Scott’s pack (current membership, two). But absolutely not some kind of whining teen omega that desperately needed emotional validation.

“Stupid werewolf muscles that are only there because of some genetic freak of nature and not because of hours of surreptitious gym work to get first line.” Stiles was feeding his agitation deliberately, wanting to reinforce the hatred, the contempt, the utter disregard he knew he must feel for Derek Hale. “Stupid tattoo, on stupid broad, muscled shoulders. Stupid, snarky, patronising…” Stiles thumped the steering wheel in anger. Derek was clearly incapable of seeing the full awesomeness of Stiles. Scott could always see it. There were times – times to be treasured, the memories stored up for future late night reference – when Stiles knew Lydia could see it. But Derek seemed to be immune to this perfectly obvious fact of life.

Stiles was still muttering to himself as he pulled up outside his home. Derek had really riled him today, for some inexplicable reason. He grabbed his Batman backpack from the passenger seat, which clanked as the manacles fell against themselves, and slammed the door of his Jeep before stomping towards the house.  
His dad was on the late shift – Stiles had noticed that the cruiser had already gone, so he felt himself at liberty to throw a couple of smallish pizzas in the oven from his stash in the freezer – the box clearly labelled in marker pen “I know how many are supposed to be left” as a deterrent to his dad. When they were ready, he grabbed the pizza, a carton of milk from the fridge and the backpack, and with some difficulty carted the whole lot up to his bedroom.

 

Stiles was still on edge, and even two pepperoni pizzas were not enough to bring him to a calmer frame of mind. Stiles knew there was only one thing to be done if he was going to avoid an extra dose of Adderall this evening. He booted up his lap top, and swiftly typed a url. As the porn site came up – his father had long since given up even pretending to use parental controls, as it typically took Stiles all of two minutes to break them – Stiles entered his username and password. He scrolled down to the “favourites” section, and then clicked through to a very specific video. This was his “use in case of emergency” video. Stiles shifted himself in his chair to get to a more comfortable position, and unbelted his jeans. He popped the button, and slid down the zip, as the video credits began to roll along with the standard warnings and disclaimers that were of no relevance whatsoever.

Stiles enlarged the video to full screen as the dark haired actor came into shot. He was standing by a bed, broad shouldered, tight T plain T shirt and a beardy, stubbly thing going on. Stile wet his lips slightly with his tongue. He had seen this often enough to know the sequence of events. The guy slowly stripped off his T shirt, and Stiles shucked his jeans down his thighs – geez these were tight. He pushed his boxers down as well, and leaned forward towards the computer screen, gently stroking his dick with his right hand. He was already hard – in fact he had been half hard since he had gotten to Derek’s apartment, though that was obviously just a coincidence.

The video guy was now stripping off his jeans. He went commando too, but that too was coincidence. As was the dark hair and the stubble. Video guy looked nothing like Derek, obviously. There was no tattoo. And video guy had to be nearing thirty years old. And video guy did not have the same abs as Derek did. And he did not have the smouldering glare that Derek did. But he did seem to have an ability to finger himself with a vengeance. Stiles began to breathe more heavily and worked his hand somewhat faster on his dick. He paused to rub his thumb over the top as video guy began to masturbate. Stiles was wet with precum, and already close to the edge. He had not played with himself at all today, aside from a quick grab at his crotch while driving home, and he was wanted to get the high of orgasm quickly. He forwarded the video to the four minute stage, and watched as video guy began to reach his climax.

“Yes, do it for me, cum all over yourself you dirty little wolfman” Stiles muttered to himself, starting to work his dick furiously now. His breathing became laboured as he felt the moment coming, and he could feel a strain in his forearm as he worked himself with greater energy. He suddenly gripped tightly, in spasm of pleasure, just as the definitely not Derek’s double video guy also came. Video guy sprayed himself over his abs. Stiles made a mess of his Ben Sherman T shirt. He looked down at himself. “Huh. Well, I hit the target” he muttered to himself, dabbing at the design in the middle of his top.

As Stiles reached to the box of tissues on the right hand side of his desk, he turned his back to the side window of his room. He thus failed to notice the shadow that flitted briefly across the semi-closed blind. And if Stiles heard the huff of a suppressed laugh, he assumed it was the wind.


	5. Chasing tails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles gave another spasm, not tipping his chair, but pressing his pen into his notepad with a force that snapped it. Crap, that was one of Scott’s special sparkly pens.

Stiles had pulled himself out of bed earlier than normal on Friday. It was the full moon that evening, and he had to get things ready. He told his dad he would be spending the night at Scott’s place, which his father had accepted with a grunt that registered no surprise. He had told Mrs McCall to work the night shift. She had protested this, but Scott had backed him up. He had gone to Dr Deaton’s for some additional supplies, and was ready for the evening.

By lunchtime Stiles was sitting by his computer, trawling through an insane werewolf fan-website in the hope that there might be something intelligent amidst all the drivel. Occasionally there was. He was jotting notes in his notebook, or at least in theory that was what he was doing. After forty minutes of blather and a couple of dated Buffy references, however, Stiles was beginning to despair. He doodled idly, his mind wandering off on various tangents. Was there, in fact, a dance routine to go with that rhyme of Derek’s? At what on earth was the three seas reference? And could werewolves wear leather jackets in wolf form, like those little dog coats?

“Stiles.”

The bark of a monosyllabic alpha caused Stiles to almost overbalance in his chair. His arms flailed wildly, before Derek caught at the back of the seat (this replacement version was fortunately claw proof. Or chipmunk teeth proof). Stiles sat securely upright, but flailed again to emphasis the point – because this was a point that needed a great deal of emphasis. “God will you, just, NOT do that you creepy stalker? Do NOT jump up behind people having crawled through their windows. And stop barking in monosyllables all the time. It is unnerving. What would you have done if my name was Algernon or something? Can you manage three syllables?”

“Is your real name Algernon?” Derek was grinning in that slightly evil way of his.

“No it is not. It is Stiles. And what do you want”. Stiles was remembering the resentment he was feeling towards the alpha from the day before. 

“You forgot these.” Derek dropped a set of keys onto Stiles’s notebook, neatly labelled “Manacle Set 5” in the ordered obsessive-compulsive handwriting of a glowering control-freak. Stiles was pretty sure he had not forgotten the keys, because he had not been offered keys – though perhaps he should have thought that they might be necessary.

“Stiles”

Stiles gave another spasm, not tipping his chair, but pressing his pen into his notepad with a force that snapped it. Crap, that was one of Scott’s special sparkly pens. He must have left it from when they were studying economics the other night, and Scott got very possessive about his sparkly pens. “What did I just say? Did I not just tell you, thirty seconds ago, not to go barking out like that? It is rude. And unfriendly, and…” Stiles followed Derek’s gaze down to his notepad. Double crap.

“Stiles. I Do NOT Have A Tail.”

Stiles looked at the doodle of a leather Jacket wearing werewolf, which was sporting a definite and somewhat fluffy tail. He swallowed, somewhat nervously.

“You sure about that? Because I have this theory that you are actually a werewolf-poodle cross breed, and…”

“No tail. But I do have claws”. And indeed Stiles could see very clearly that he had claws. “And fangs” Stiles was getting a good look at those too. “And an ability to rip your throat out. With my teeth”.

“And then who would stop Scott from going rogue?” Stiles inquired. “I’m sorry about the poodle joke, OK. Though you should not feel inadequate about your lack of tail. Some werewolves blossom, late, that is all. I am sure your tail will grow in later…”

There was a growl – more of a snarl – from Derek, and Stiles suddenly remembered that tonight was the full moon and it might be better not to poke the werewolf too forcefully. 

Derek loomed over Stiles, glaring all the while. Stiles pushed his chair back a little.

“Just bring the manacles back tomorrow. Blood free. And oiled.”

Derek turned on his heel and left. By the window. Of course.

Stiles ruefully thought that this rather summed up his life. Cleaning off blood and oiling manacles. The career options this sort of training led to did not really bear thinking about.

 

 

It was evening when he arrived at Scott’s. He let himself in with his key, and went straight to Scott’s room. Scott was pacing restlessly – at least there was a little more floorspace here for it. Stiles got straight down to business. 

“Hey, calm down buddy.” Scott stopped in his pacing. “Still feeling a bit off?” Scott just nodded. “OK, just do as I tell you and everything will be fine.” There was another curt nod from Scott.

“OK then. Come here. There’s a good boy Scotty, come to Stiles.”

Scott did his ‘you are pushing the sarcasm too far’ face – a sort of head roll and pouty expression – and walked over to where Stiles stood in the middle of the room.

“Now, Scott: Sit”.

“Stiles”

“I meant, please sit down, Scott”.

“Here? Shouldn’t I be near something I can be chained to?”

“No need, Scott. I have every werewolf handler’s best friend – a pot of magic fairy dust direct from Dr Deaton” Stiles shook a canister of mountain ash at his friend. Scott sat down, and Stiles carefully shook a circle around him, about ten feet in diameter.

“But we want to be safe”. Stiles opened his Batman backpack and took out the restraints, and the keys. “Particularly as I am going to be staying with you, and I really do not want too many claw marks on the smooth perfection of my body. So. Shake paw”.

The pouty look was back on Scott’s face. 

“Come on buddy, paaaw” Stiles dragged out the word. Silently Scott held up his left arm.

“Wait a second, dude. Do you want to sleep in your shirt? Because once these babies go on” Stiles rattled the manacles “that shirt is not coming off in one piece.”

“Good thinking.” Scott pulled off the long sleeved and short sleeved T shirts he was wearing in a single movement, and threw them vaguely in the direction of his laundry basket. 

“You are such a slob, you know that? Anyway… paaaw”. Scott held up his hand again, and Stiles locked the manacles around the wrist. “And other paw”. Scott maintained a dignified silence, and held out his right hand. Stiles locked the second cuff into place.

“How do those feel? OK?”.

Scott nodded. 

“And how do you feel?” There was real concern in Stiles’s voice. He was worried about his best friend, more than he had let on. Allison may have been Scott’s anchor, but Scott was in many ways Stiles’s anchor. He had kept Stiles grounded, or more grounded than he would otherwise have been, over the years.

“I feel… a bit better, actually.”

“That’s good.” Stiles was relieved. “Perhaps just knowing that you are not going to be able to do anything will keep you more controlled. Just to check, try and get out of the ash circle.”

Scott stood, and tried to cross the barrier. “No, can’t do it. How do you do that, anyway?” 

“No idea. Obviously only a human can manage it.”

Scott sat back down. “So now what?”

“Well computer games are out. I can wipe the floor with you ordinarily. With manacles on it would just be embarrassing. But don’t worry, I brought alternative entertainment”. Stiles reached into his backpack again, pulling out the water bowl labelled “Scott”, and casting it to one side. Then, hand inside the backpack, he squeaked some hidden object. Scott looked bemused. Stiles brought out a squeaky rubber bone. “For you buddy. Hours of fun….”

Scott just sighed. “You are enjoying this way too much, you know that? This could be serious. What if I turn tonight? What if I go out of control.”

“Hey, Scott, don’t worry. I’ll be here for you throughout.”

“What? No, Stiles, no. You can’t. If I go out of control, you need to be far away. What if I try to kill you?”

“We have had this conversation before, Scott. If killing me, please make it quick and painless as I have a low tolerance of pain in any form. And you won’t kill me. You haven’t done so for the last thirteen years. I am pretty sure your Stiles tolerance level is pretty high. I’m here for you bro”

Stiles got up and dragged Scott’s duvet from his bed. “So, you want to bed down? Turn round three or four times and curl up?”. Scott tried to glower at Stiles. “Dude that is so pathetic. You so need to get Derek to teach you some glowering moves.”

Scott huffed out a breath. “Actually…” he sounded a little hesitant.

“What is it?” Stiles was all seriousness. 

“Well, would you mind…” Scott gestured down with his hands towards his jeans “taking these off? I hate sleeping in my clothes.”

“You had better not be going commando under there. It was bad enough with Jackson. I do not want to be getting all up close and personal with your junk as well.”

“Dude, of course I am not going commando. I have boxers on.”

Stiles knelt down, unbuckling Scott’s belt and undoing the button at the top of his jeans. 

“It is a button fly” Scott sounded somewhat apologetic, as well he might.

Stiles sighed, and reached to undo the buttons without copping a feel at the same time. He brushed against Scott’s cock a couple of times with the back of his hand, because really there was no other way of doing this. He then pulled down the jeans, and Scott stepped out of them. A manly silence had been maintained throughout the whole process. Scott lay down on the duvet.

“Thanks, Stiles.”

“You’re welcome, buddy.” Stiles pulled off his own T shirt, and lay down next to Scott on the duvet.

“What? No. Stiles, you need to be outside the ash circle. It isn’t safe. It isn’t safe here in the room, far less inside the circle.”

“Relax Scott.” Stiles patted Scott’s shoulder. “I have wolfsbane to hand if necessary, and I can skip over the boundary if I need to. I just figured you needed someone with you tonight. Calm down.”

“Shouldn’t you be doing what I tell you? I am the alpha”

“And a wonderful alpha you are too Scott. Now shut up and do as you are told.”

Scott huffed out a breath of exasperation. Stiles was sure there was a three little pigs joke in the huffing, but he was going to need time to get it right. Instead, he pulled himself closer to Scott's side, draped his arm across Scott’s bare shoulders and and prepared to drift towards sleep.


	6. Focusing on the full moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dude, let me get my face out of your crotch, or I’ll get Danny to change your online name to mini-McCall. Which I can personally testify to”

Stiles woke on Saturday morning, his arms wrapped around Scott. Scott’s quiet, rhythmic breathing indicated he was still in deep sleep. There were no sideburns, no pointy ears, and no elongated canines. It seemed to Stiles that Scott had stayed in command of his faculties. If Stiles were going to be unpleasant he might have added a “such as they were” to his last thought, but Stiles was not going to be unpleasant. The Lydia thing was past history, and Scott was an awesome best friend. Who also, rather awesomely, had not chosen to chew on Stiles as if he were a piece of werewolf kibble last night. Though the squeaky rubber bone was looking something the worse for wear, Stiles noted. 

Stiles was not inclined to move yet. Research was tiring, and he deserved a lie-in. He snuggled a little closer to the warmth of Scott’s bare back, and shifted his arm a little tighter round Scott’s chest. But Stiles’s mind was treacherous. Stiles may want down time, but his mind was constantly battling away, Tron style, for the next pathway it could take.

Scott had not transformed. Which suggested that Scott’s uneasiness was not a result of the full moon. This must be something else. The only way Scott could stay in human form on a full moon was if he was anchored, and Allison had to be that anchor. Stiles had been woken twice in the night by Scott talking moderately incoherently in his sleep. Sadly for Stiles, Scott had not been incoherent enough. After three drawn out cries of “Allison”, there had been one very excited yipping sound that had seemed to resemble the word “tapioca”. At that point Stiles had started singing the periodic table to himself in the manner of Tom Lehrer. While thinking of Mr. Harris. There were some things about Scott he really did not want to know, and this had seemed the best way of shutting down his mental process.

Stiles shifted his weight slightly against Scott, rubbing his chest against his alpha’s back, as his brain idled. This was often how his thought process worked. He would not be thinking of anything specifically, before BAM, he was off on a new path. If Scott’s problem was not related to his anchor, which seemed to be functioning rather well, it must be something else. Had anything else changed? Stiles and Scott had not changed. Scott still had Stiles, and he knew it. Stiles thought briefly of Isaac. Had that relationship changed? There was a twinge of jealousy at the back of Stiles’s mind at the idea, but Stiles’s mind instinctively turned away from it with a vehement ninety degree direction shift. Isaac was nothing to Scott compared to Stiles, and there was no way Scott could have shifted his behaviour so significantly over someone as peripheral (Stiles lingered over that word, savouring it) as Isaac. 

Scott started murmuring again. Stiles lifted his head, and caught the name “Allison” repeated several times. He also noted a certain tent like characteristic to the front of Scott’s chequered boxer shorts. Stiles quickly dropped his head back to the duvet, and brought his right hand up to Scott’s chest area from its previous resting place on his abs. He would distract himself. He was trying to remember the Monty Python Philosophers’ Drinking Song as an alternative antidote, when his mind did another ninety degree turn. Maybe Scott had been right. Maybe his problem was an alpha thing. In which case, Stiles would need to get information straight from the wolf’s mouth. When he took the manacles back to Derek, he could ask about the whole unfocused, unsettling deal. Stiles started to fidget as his mind went through the possibilities – the possibilities of sorting out Scott’s problem, not the possibilities of seeing Derek Hale again. There were no possibilities associated with seeing Derek again. Clearly. Specifically there were no possibilities associated with seeing Derek Hale flexing the muscles of his naked torso in a provocative manner…. Next to him, Scott started to stir, lifting his head from the slightly drool soaked duvet. He had spectacular bed hair. Although, to be fair, Scott’s hair was always something of a life unto itself. Stiles had suggested on more than one occasion that Scott’s hair was some independent, sentient creature that inhabited the top of Scott’s otherwise bald head. Stiles stretched and got up.

“Morning”. Scott was blinking blearily into the daylight. “Did anything happen”.

Stiles thought back to the midnight sleep talking, and Scott’s excited yipping sounds, and shuddered a little. “Nothing werewolfy. And you are still anchored to Allison”.

“Seriously?” Scott was getting that goofy, glazed look about him again.

Stiles grimaced as he recalled the rather definite proofs of that fact. “Yeah, so the problem has to be something else. How do you feel now?”

Scott came back to the present with a well-timed nudge from Stiles’s foot. “I feel… not right, but more focused than I have been. Can you take these cuffs off me now?”

Stiles dug out the key from his jeans pocket, and bent down to unlocked the manacles. “I need to do some more research, dig around a bit more and find out what this is.” He stood back.

Scott stood slowly. “Thanks bro. But I am glad it is not an Allison thing. How about breaking the ash circle so I can get to work?”

“Not until you say ‘Grand Wizard Stiles the Silent is the best, and Braveheart McCall trembles in his presence’”.

“Dude, seriously… I have to get to work”.

“Good luck with that”. Stiles grabbed his T shirt and made as if heading for the door.

“Stiles”. Scott’s pleading was pitiful, and he was combining the full puppy eyes expression with it. But Stiles could be hard hearted when required. He raised an eyebrow at Scott, and waited.

“Grandwizardstilesthesilentisthebestandbravehartmccalltremblesinhispresence” Scott said, without pausing for breath.

“That’ll do, I guess.” Stiles broke the ash circle, and immediately Scott pulled him into a headlock. 

“Braveheart McCall eats Grand Wizards for breakfast”

“Dude, let me get my face out of your crotch, or I’ll get Danny to change your online name to mini-McCall. Which I can personally testify to”

“Jerk”

“Bitch”

Scott released his best friend, and they went down for breakfast.

 

 

Stiles laboured up the stairs to Derek’s apartment again, his batman backpack clanking gently in his hand. The door was unlocked, so Stiles pushed right in. Somewhere in the background an iPod was playing, and Stiles could see another dark T shirt – maybe the same dark T shirt – crumpled on the floor in the middle of the open planning living room. Right next to the T shirt was its owner, doing push ups with a manic energy that caused his muscles to bulge in all the right places. Stiles gasped out a breath and dropped the backpack. This was really not fair. Constantly exposing this much perfect human flesh and muscle to an impressionable, healthily curious teenager must be covered under the cruel and unnatural punishment part of the constitution. He must be doing this deliberately, just to torment Stiles.

“Hey, Sourwolf” – no, crap, play nice. Stiles needed a favour from Derek. “I mean, Alpha Derek. I brought back your manacles for you.”

Stiles bent to unzip the backpack as Derek got to his feet. It was purely the act of standing up again too suddenly that caused Stiles to go all lightheaded. It could not be anything to do with the sudden proximity of Derek, who did not seem to have broken a sweat at all, despite his workout routine. The taut muscles had no impact on Stiles’s mental reflexes at all.

“Blood free, and oiled. Though there was no blood in the first place, as it happened.”

“You used olive oil?” Derek was clearly scenting the manacles as he took them from Stiles, and seemed unnerved by that fact.

“Well, yes. I didn’t want to use cheap oil, and I figured borrowing manacles is a bit like borrowing cookware or something, so yes I used olive oil. That is OK, isn’t it? I mean, I wasn’t supposed to use wolfsbane infused oil or something?”

“Olive oil is fine.”

Stiles handed over the key, feeling a small tingle as his fingers brushed against Derek’s. “The key I did not oil, because it is bad for the locks to keep oiling keys, but it looked OK so I figured it was fine to leave it.”

Derek strode over to the trunk, which was where it had been on Thursday. In the Spartan surroundings of Derek’s apartment it stood out conspicuously. He opened the lid and placed the manacles inside, almost reverentially it seemed to Stiles. It suddenly occurred to him that the trunk and its content must be one of the very few things to have survived the Hale family fire. Stiles suddenly wondered how big a deal it had been for Derek to let him borrow them, to use on Scott. These must be one of the very few things he had left of his family.

“I took good care of them. As it turns out, Scott did not need them. He seems to be still anchored to Allison, and he stayed in control all night. Well, aside from a little drooling, of course.” Something that might have been a laugh came from Derek, but that could not be right. Stiles had barely ever seen him smile, far less laugh. However, it was not an expression of annoyance, so Stiles decided to push on.

“So, as it is not an anchor-Allison type thing, there must be something else that is causing the problem. And I wondered if I could ask you about it?”

Derek stood slowly from where he was crouched by the trunk, and turned to face Stiles. His expression was impassive. He was not glowering, but Stiles thought that a glower was being kept in reserve, ready to be pulled out if he stepped over a line. Any line. Even a line that only existed in Derek’s imagination. 

“Sooooo.” Stiles was getting nervous. This much brooding machismo in such close proximity was making his mouth go dry. “So, I wondered if the cause of Scott’s lack of focus might be an alpha thing?” There was a twitch in Derek’s left pec muscle again. Did that mean yes? “Deaton did not seem to think so, but he said different werewolves had different experiences. And as you are the only other alpha I know, or at least the only other alpha I know who is not intent on killing me immediately” both of Derek’s biceps flexed at that “I thought I might ask you if you knew anything about it. I mean, when you became an alpha did you go through an unsettled period?”

Derek stood and said nothing. The glower was brought to the fore as well.

“Seriously, dude, I am not asking to be offensive. I am asking to help Scott. And I know you want to help him too. So how about some verbal communication, rather than me trying to interpret the semaphore of the movements of your fine werewolfly muscles?”

“This is personal stuff”. Derek’s voice was a growl.

“I realise that, but… if it IS a problem you know about then can you help? And if you don’t have a cure but you know about the problem, then maybe I can find a cure. You know that is what I do. If I can narrow down the search a bit, I can find the cure more quickly, and that will help to centre Scott and… and any other alpha that needs to be more focused.”

There was a long silence. As the minutes ticked by Stiles thought he could almost see the stubble on Derek’s face growing, while he waited for a reply. Derek suddenly walked over to one of the chairs and gestured to Stiles.

“Fine. Sit.”

Stiles was just about to make a witty retort in the dog training genre, when he remembered that he needed Derek’s help. And Stiles’s witty retorts, while completely awesome and always funny, sometimes seemed to rile Derek. He moved over to the chair, and sat.

“Yes, I have been unfocused since becoming an alpha. Unsettled. Because I am not some hormone crazed teenager” there was a rather pointed look from Derek at Stiles “I generally have better control than Scott seems to have. But yes, it started when I became an alpha.”

Stiles twitched in his chair with excitement. “So it is an alpha…”

Derek held up his hand imperiously. The glower was back to give the hand reinforcements.

“No”.

There was another pause. A long pause. A pause in which Stiles was beginning to fear that Derek had lost the power of speech. Which, granted, was never that great in the first place, but still. Derek’s jaw muscles seemed to have taken on the role of “muscle group that flexes continuously”, maybe to give Derek’s back muscles a break.

There was a throat clearing – growl combination, and Derek lifted his glower to some point a couple of feet above Stiles’s head. 

“It is not a general alpha thing. It is something specific to our family. And Scott, technically, is part of the Hale werewolf bloodline even if he is not a direct descendent.”

Stiles had never considered that before, but Scott must be some kind of cadet branch of the Hale gene pool. This was it, obviously. He almost bounced off the chair in his excitement.

“So what is it? What does Scott have to do?”

Derek’s glower became even more oppressive. Dark storm clouds seemed to be chasing across his face and his eyebrows were forming a solid offensive line directed at Stiles’s wholly inadequate defences.

“If I knew how to stop it, don’t you think I would have stopped it already?”

Stiles swallowed a little. Derek’s jaw muscles were still clenching and unclenching, but they seemed to be joined in this activity by Derek’s abs, pecs, and biceps. Stiles was not sure where he was supposed to be looking, but the writhing mass of muscle before him was probably not the best place. Derek clearly was in the throw of some considerable emotion.

“The secret of the Hale alpha control died with my parents.”


	7. Letting the barrier down a fraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was never destined to be an alpha. Or at least that was not the plan – but plans can change. The Triskelion is there to remind us of that – to us it means alpha, beta, omega. It is a reminder that we can occupy any position in the pack hierarchy at any time. But it was not supposed to be me.

Stiles stared at Derek. Derek stared at some point above Stiles’s head, and seemed to be having some kind of internal conflict. His jaw muscles clenched several times and he was glowering on and off – but not at Stiles. Which was an odd sensation for Stiles. Glowering directed towards Stiles, he was used to. But Derek seemed to be glowering at himself.

All of a sudden Stiles’s vision was full of Derek’s face, as Derek bent down and leant into him. Stiles could smell Derek’s aftershave – holy hell, Derek wore aftershave? Stiles was pressed back into his chair, and was about to make one of those sarcastic retorts that he used as a defence mechanism, when he noticed Derek’s eyes. They were not the red alpha eyes. They were his normal gray human eyes. But they were unusually bright. Stiles bit back on his lips to stop himself from saying anything. This was a Derek he had never seen before, except perhaps that one time at Deaton’s when Scott had been hurt. And maybe right after they got out of the pool when Jackson had been the Kanima. Derek blinked rapidly and then growled in a rather throaty attempt at his normal, intimidating voice.

“If you ever tell anyone what I am about to tell you. If I find out Scott, or anyone ever hears of this…”

“Chill, dude. Stiles the Silent, remember? Just tell me what you know, and I’ll help. It is what I do, alright?”

Derek stood back up, and turned his back on Stiles. Stiles was once again treated to a rather fine view of Derek’s muscles and those painted on jeans. And, God, he was getting hard at the sight of that butt walking slowly away from him. This was clearly inappropriate.

Derek did not turn to face Stiles. He kept looking ahead of him, twitching his shoulders every once in a while.

“Different werewolf bloodlines have different characteristics, different attributes. The Hale bloodline is powerful – whether born or bitten, Hale wolves are generally stronger, more skilful, with better reflexes. The strength comes from the strength of the alpha, and the strength of the Hale alpha comes from the fact that they are balanced.”

There was a pause. Stiles sat, almost still. Derek cleared his throat loudly, keeping his back to Stiles, his face averted.

“Growing up, I was one of the youngest in the pack, apart from... Apart from a couple of cousins who were human. My sister, my older cousins all used to talk about the family secret – the secret of being a true Hale alpha. Silly stories, based around that silly rhyme. I was always the little kid, tagging along behind them. Laura looked out for me, and cousin Jacob as well, but they would tease me too. Kid’s stuff, just what families do. They said that they all knew and would never tell me… and then the fire on the wolf moon…”

Derek stopped rather abruptly. Stiles saw him lower his head. He half stood from his chair, reaching out a hand with the intention of putting it reassuringly on Derek’s shoulder, when Derek suddenly twitched and started again.

“I was never destined to be an alpha. Or at least that was not the plan – but plans can change. The Triskelion is there to remind us of that – to us it means alpha, beta, omega. It is a reminder that we can occupy any position in the pack hierarchy at any time. But it was not supposed to be me. The alpha, and one or two senior pack wolves knew the secret of the Hale alpha’s power, but the pack as a whole did not know it. I never knew it. “

Stiles had subsided back into his seat, and he now shifted a little nervously. “Peter?” he asked.

“Peter never knew either. Your saw what sort of alpha he was. Do you call that balanced? He was unbalanced as a beta, of course, with the aftermath of what I… of what the fire had done to him. Becoming an alpha pushed him to a whole new level of dysfunction.”

Stiles stood up. He was animated by the possibilities, and had been sitting long enough. It was a small miracle he had been sitting as long as he had. He began to pace around the empty space of Derek’s loft, muttering half to himself, half to Derek. 

“So there is something in your history that gives a Hale alpha control or balance or focus. It is more than the anchor needed to control the shift – you and Scott both have that, and neither of you have the focus. And it is something that had to be kept secret from the pack, or from most of the pack. I mean if it was some ritual that the alpha had to do it would not be a problem if other pack members knew it because they would not be able to do it. So there must be something that, I don’t know, makes the alpha vulnerable? Or temporarily vulnerable, perhaps? And when you have this thing, it gives you more power, and more control.”

Derek stood silent, his face still turned from Stiles.

“Dude, I need to hear the rhyme again. There must be something in that. That and the Triskele or Triskelion or whatever you want to call your tattoo.” 

Derek recited in a subdued tone:

“The true Hale alpha can only mean,  
Master of the three seas of the Tree Cassyn”.

Stiles nodded, grabbed his notebook and a pen from the front of his backpack and jotted it down. “And you recited this when you could control the shift”. 

Derek grunted. 

“Is that like a werewolf rite of passage thing? Controlling the shift is some kind of wolf Bar Mitzvah?”

Derek breathed a deep sigh, as if he were trying to pull himself together. “Yes. I controlled the shift at fourteen. On the next wolf moon I recited the rhyme, and got the tattoo, and became a full part of the pack. And on the wolf moon after that….” Derek stopped again.

Stiles had a strong urge to go up and put his arm around Derek. This was clearly digging up stuff that Derek had been supressing for a very long time. Stiles moved slowly to where Derek was standing, still with his back to him, and put a hand very tentatively on Derek’s shoulder. 

“Dude…”

Derek twitched his shoulder away suddenly, and moved towards his staircase – not looking at Stiles directly.

“That’s it. You know everything you need to.”

“Derek….” Stiles could almost feel the pain rolling off the alpha as he moved away. God knows, Derek brooded and glowered and was generally insensitive 99.9% of the time, but this was a whole new level of angst. “Derek… I’ll help, OK? I can work this out. And you can trust me. Even if Scott ever does find his alpha voice, which is looking a long shot at the moment, this will stay with me. Other than telling Scott what he needs for the cure.”

Some of the tension seemed to go out of Derek’s shoulders. He pulled himself up the staircase. As Stiles stared up after his disappearing form, he could have sworn he heard a faint, muttered “thanks”. But his hearing might have been defective.


	8. The truth of the three seas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles was trembling with excitement. This was it.

Stiles drove home feeling unsettled – and not in the way that a double dose of Adderall could cure. His stomach was churning. Derek, Derek freakin’ Hale had opened up to him, shared stuff with him. He was certain Derek had not done that with anyone, certainly not since Laura had died. Why had he done that? And what had he shared? Derek seemed to be carrying around a huge amount of guilt over the Hale fire, which couldn’t have been anything to do with him. That was all Kate’s doing, so why would Derek feel responsible? Survivor’s guilt? Was the guilt why he had opened up to Stiles? Had Derek recognised Stiles’s guilt, Stiles’s responsibility for his own mother’s death, and felt he could be more open with Stiles as a result? Or was it because he needed Stiles, needed the information from him, and was certain he could kill Stiles if he needed to once he had got the information he needed? Or was it…

Or was it because he felt something for Stiles?

He couldn’t. People like Derek, or werewolves like Derek did not fall for people like Stiles. Derek was someone Stiles could put on a pedestal, an unobtainable fantasy, a source of material late at night, something to search for on porn websites, not that the guy that wasn’t Derek on the porn site in any way resembled Derek. It was just a coincidence. But Derek did seem to be around a lot. And he had said things to Stiles that he could never have told anyone in his pack, or Scott, or Deaton, or…

Stiles allowed himself a brief moment of blissful fantasy as he pulled up at some lights. Fantasy that was straight out of a Twilight novel – sappy romance and impassioned kisses and undying love and, crap, now the jerk in the Porsche behind was beeping his horn at Stiles as the lights turned green. 

Stiles’s daydream was in tatters now, as he pulled away from the junction. If Derek had been being anything other than an alpha needing information he would not have pulled away from Stiles when Stiles had touched his shoulder. He would not have refused to look at Stiles. He must have been embarrassed at having to share with… with… with someone he clearly viewed as an immature adolescent. Stiles had always been tactile. With his mother, before she was too worn out. With his father. With Scott. If you cared, you hugged. And Derek did not care. The closest he got to hugging was gripping the back of Stiles’s neck before driving his forehead into the steering wheel of his Jeep. Stiles was pretty sure that did not count, though admittedly it was fairly tactile.

Derek just wanted to use him. There was nothing emotional about it and Stiles should just grow up and get on with the matter in hand.

 

 

Five hours later and Stiles was at a dead end. Actually, at a series of dead ends. His room was littered with paper trails leading nowhere and signposts to blind alleys. He had tried every source he could. He could not find a Cassyn tree anywhere. There was no serious reference to the three seas that Stiles could unearth. And there was nothing to link the Triskele or Triskelion to werewolf lore in any of the books that he had managed to reference. There were a couple of websites using the Triskelion as a sigil but it seemed to be wiccans and witches and the normal pagans and druids of cyberspace. Online gaming did not have anything either, which Stiles had never been that hopeful of the online gaming community as a source, but occasionally fantasy gaming had a tenuous basis in reality that could be exploited. 

He could not give up. Scott needed this, and Scott was his best friend who had stood by him. And Derek needed this, and Derek was… well Derek was a jerk. But it did not mean Stiles was entitled to abandon him to an unsettled fate. 

Stiles’s mind did one of its random flips. Maybe the Adderall was finally kicking in, or maybe it was the way Stiles’s mind was wired. If he was getting nowhere with the werewolf side of the Hale lineage, perhaps he should concentrate on the human side? The Hales clearly passed as humans. And there were humans in the pack – Derek had said he had had two human cousins younger than him, who Stiles feared would have died in the fire. He knew from the records there were children killed in the Hale house. But if the Hales passed as human then they must leave a human trail and that might give a link.

Stiles started tracing back through the history of Beacon Hills. The Hale house itself was old, or had been old (or was still old, but was not so much of a house now). Stiles followed the paper trail back, and discovered it had been built by a Hale in the 1860s – the first Hale of Beacon Hill. Thos Hale, which presumably meant Thomas Hale. He could not trace him any further locally – but the Beacon Hills Bugle archive said he was in his twenties when the house was built, and he was doing so with money he had inherited from his prospector father who had died suddenly. Assuming the Hale bloodline was fairly lengthy, it must be that this Thos Hale was a werewolf, as was his father, and if they had come west in 1849, when Thos or Thomas was still a child, where had they come from? And would they have had an unfair advantage prospecting, with werewolf senses? He must ask Scott that. If Scott could sniff out gold it would be very useful in paying for college tuition… and this was so not the point. Stiles needed to get back on track. While not forgetting for future reference that werewolves may be some sort of truffle pig parallel sniffing out gold nuggets.

Stiles broadened his search, delving into family history websites until he suddenly hit upon match. Thos Hale, born 1840. 

“Yesssssssssss”

Stiles raised his arms victoriously and spun his chair round three times, OK four times in celebration. He had tracked down the Hale origins to… 

Stiles suddenly snorted with laughter. That explained the tail. And also had to be a major hint on the Triskelion. It was not Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes at all. It was Agatha Christie – but about a century before her time, but still. 

Now Stiles had something to work with, his feverish terrier instincts took over. He KNEW he was on the right trail. It was a Tree Cassyn, not a Cassyn Tree. It all seemed to fit. But the three seas were still elusive. Stiles spent another two hours poring over maps, local geography, coastlines, local legends. It was when Stiles finally combined the right sequence of words into the search, and had the idea to search for images, that he was finally confronted with proof of the solution to the Hale alpha’s power. The picture was from an antique website, Alf’s Antiques. Stiles clicked through.

There was a picture of a man in his sixties, covered in tattoos (none of which were even vaguely Triskelion like), looking like a former body builder and standing behind a long mahogany counter. Behind him, ranged on some shelves, there seemed to be an improbably large collection of china figurines. Underneath this picture and the legend “Alf’s Antiques” in flowing script, was the photo of round mahogany plate on a stand thing, and a description. 

‘Of Local Interest – Lazy Suzan with possible parlour game application

This late Georgian or Regency Lazy Susan is made of high quality mahogany, almost certainly by a local craftsman. Unusually, the plate is split into two parts, with the central piece remaining static (perhaps to hold a vase of flowers) and the outer ring revolving in the normal manner of such dining room furniture. An additional unusual feature is the painting of a Triskelion on the top of the dish. The three branches of the centre are on the static part of the Lazy Susan, with each branch bearing an inscription: alpha; beta; omega. The outer, revolving part contains the three spiral conclusions to the three branches (designed in the Irish Celtic tradition), with each spiral bearing its own inscription: cloan; coheshaght; cooish graih. It is possible that the piece doubled as the basis for some local parlour game, the origins of which have now been lost. The piece has a beautiful patina overall, and would be an interesting feature of any dining table.’

Stiles was trembling with excitement. This was it. This had to be it. Why else would there be alpha, beta, and omega on the Lazy Susan, whatever the hell that was? He was onto the secret of the Hale family. This must be some kind of heirloom or something. 

It took two further hours of feverish searching, cross referencing, checking, and rechecking, before Stiles was certain. He had pursued this line of inquiry to its very end, and he knew how to bring stability to Scott, and to Derek. Siles KNEW for certain the secret of the Hale alphas and their power.

Stiles’s moment of victory, of revelling in the truly awesome nature of his mental processes suddenly gave way as his mind went into another of its tangential leaps.

Crap.

Double crap.

Freakin’ crap, on crap, on crap, on…

Stiles was going to have to talk to Derek.

He was going to have to talk to Derek about sex.

In detail.

In intimate detail.

Like really, really intimate detail. 

Oh, God. 

Stiles was going to have his throat ripped out, for sure.


	9. The Hale alpha stripped bare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am not talking bondage or anything.” Stiles could feel his cheeks heating up, as he started blushing. “No whips, or collars, or leather – though you might enjoy….”

Technically, Stiles was sitting in his chair, waiting for Derek. However, his excitement had taken hold to such an extent that his butt connected with the seat of the chair only in the most sporadic fashion, as he bounced up and down. He compulsively clicked through the trail of web sites, and document, opening and shutting them on his screen with a speed that meant he could not possibly be looking at them, while bouncing unconsciously in a complex rhythm. Stiles checked his Samsung phone again – he had texted Derek “Get here ASAP” a whole five, now a whole six minutes ago. Why was Derek not here yet?

Stiles’s adrenaline high made focusing on anything difficult. Which was why, when Derek did show up, fanged out and vaulting through Stiles’s open window, Stiles was completely unprepared. He had been rechecking census records – more like opening and closing pdf files of census records without really looking at them – and the sight of Derek with his red alpha eyes glowing was a shock. He let out a strangled cry of alarm, griping on to the edge of his desk to prevent any chair-falling-over type humilitions.

Derek slowly morphed back to human, but still seemed wary.

“What’s wrong?”

Stiles was confused by this. Why would anything be wrong? Everything was right in the world because Stiles was awesome and there was nothing, literally nothing, he could not resolve if given enough time. And internet access.

“Why would anything be wrong?”

“You sent me a panicked text at gone two in the morning…”

Stiles looked around him in a slightly hyperactive manner.

“It’s two in the morning?” It did strike Stiles that it was fairly dark outside.

“Nearer three.”

“Huh.” There did not seem much else to say. “Sorry. But I have the answer. I know the Hale alpha thing. I cracked the code. And we need to have THE talk. I mean A talk. Definitely a talk, not the talk.”

Derek looked at him with what might perhaps pass for concern and solicitude, if viewed in the right light. Or perhaps it was just a tired glower. “When did you last eat?”

This was just not a relevant question, in Stiles’s view. And anyway, Derek should not be asking questions. Stiles should be giving answers. That was how this worked. “I don’t know. Breakfast. Maybe”. Stiles bounced up and down in his chair a bit more “Did you not hear the bit about my discovering the secret of the Hale alphas? Were you not listening to the very clear demonstration of the truly awesome nature of my research abilities? Why are you standing there babbling about breakfast and text messages and…”

“Stay there”. Derek barked, as he pushed Stiles back into his seat and strode out the door. Seeing Derek pass through the door of Stiles’s bedroom always had something of novelty value to it. Stiles did not stay where he was, of course, but stood and started pacing his room, muttering quietly to himself under his breath.

Several minutes later Derek returned carrying a plate and a glass of milk.

“Sit. Eat.”

Stiles stared at him. 

“Stiles.”

Stiles sat in his chair and reflexively reached for the milk Derek placed in front of him. After a gulp he began to realise how thirsty he was. He finished half the glass before surfacing with a gasp. Derek handed him the sandwich – ham and mustard, and Stiles noticed it was cut into neat, slightly obsessively equal triangles. He was starving as well as thirsty. 

Derek stood by until Stiles had finished. “Better”?

“Better”. Stiles had stopped bouncing in his chair now, and he felt calmer. But he was still hyper with excitement. This was such a big deal.

“So…” Derek was still looking apprehensive.

“So, I have found the secret. And it is not Sherlock Holmes. Well it is, still totally “Musgrave Ritual”, I was right about that, but it is not Arthur Conan-Doyle, it is more Agatha Christie, only a century beforehand, but she might have gotten the idea from local legends, and it is definitely Tree Cassyn, not Cassyn Tree, and it is not the three seas, you werewolves need to learn to articulate clearly, or maybe to write things down because I guess articulating clearly would not help, but it is blindingly obvious when you know all that.”

Stiles beamed up at Derek from his desk chair. Derek stared blankly down at him. 

Stiles’s beam faded a little. Why was Derek not more excited? He rubbed his head in frustration. Was this something werewolfy? Why did every alpha of his acquaintance fail to understand the most obvious and simple of ideas when Stiles explained slowly and clearly to them? Stiles was going to have to spell it out.

“You don’t have a tail” he said with a weary, patient finality, as revealing that fact must make all clear. 

Derek was now looking alarmed. “Stiles…”

“That is the whole point. Don’t you see? How can you not see? It is right in front of you. Well I guess it is right behind you, or not right behind you because you don’t have a tail, but that is the whole key to it.”

Derek put a restraining hand on Stiles’s shoulder, to halt the bouncing that seemed to have started again. “Let me give Scott a call…” he began.

“No, its fine”. Stiles took a deep breath. “OK, I will walk you through it, one paw step at a time. Only you are going to have to promise that you won’t rip my throat out, or bite me, or claw me, or in any way inflict physical harm on me for the next ten minutes” – no, hold on, he was going to have to explain this at werewolf speed – “the next twenty five minutes. Deal?”

“Okay” Derek drew the word out with some reluctance.

“OK.” Stiles drew another deep breath. “But first I need to confirm a couple of things. Take off your T shirt.”

Derek’s look seemed inclined to shift from concern to glower. 

“Dude, come on. I need to check the Triskelion tattoo.” Derek did definitely glower at that point, Stiles supposed because it was a legitimate request and Derek resented Stiles being right and Derek being wrong. Although, as it happened it was not a legitimate request. Stiles had no need to check anything about the tattoo, but he felt he deserved some kind of reward for fourteen straight hours of internet and book research. But after a moment of glaring, Derek pulled of his T shirt in a slow, deliberate motion.

Derek stood facing Stiles, his abs conveniently around Stiles’s eye line – the muscles contoured out in front of Stiles’s face, just begging to be touched, to have fingers running over the undulations, down towards…. Stiles pulled his thoughts back.

“Turn around, I am going to take a couple of photos”. Stiles stood and snapped away with his phone, capturing the image of Derek’s muscle bound back for posterity. He half reached out to touch the tattoo – absolutely only the tattoo and not the muscles it covered, but then thought better of it. “And facing me – although not with the face, no eye glare.” Stiles could not come up with a legitimate reason why he needed a picture of Derek’s naked torso from the front, because of course there was no legitimate reason – well there was, but “to facilitate night time fantasies of sexy time” was not a reason to repeat out loud perhaps, however valid it was. So he did not offer a reason. Derek seemed to put himself through the process with a sense of long suffering resignation.

Stiles sat down again. Derek sat on the end of the bed opposite him and Stiles was glad to see he had forgotten to put on his T shirt. Because really, why bother with T shirts?

“OK. You don’t have a tail”. Derek seemed to tense. Stiles ignored him. “And I know Scott doesn’t have a tail. And I did not pay a great deal of attention to Peter when he was in alpha form, what with all the trying to kill me that was going on, but I don’t remember a tail on him either.”

Derek looked at Stiles “So?”

“So I am thinking that a characteristic of the Hale werewolf is the absence of a tail. Did Laura have a tail?”

“Yes, in wolf form”

Stiles was not deterred. He had thought of this. “But was she a Hale alpha? Your mother was a werewolf too, right? Did Laura take after her side of the family, perhaps? The Hale werewolf gene may not have been the dominant gene in her – though it must have been there somewhere because Peter inherited the Hale alpha status from her. But if the Hale alpha is faster and stronger and so on, Peter would not or should not have been able to kill Laura if she was a Hale alpha. What was your mother’s alpha trait?”

Derek was quiet for a moment, before saying, softly, “compassion, empathy, I think.” He looked down at his feet suddenly.

Stiles paused. He was clearly digging up some painful memories for Derek. He cleared his throat. “Right. So I think it is fair to say that the Hale alphas do not generally have tails in werewolf form.”

“Sure”. Derek was still looking down.

“Then it all fits. I know the secret. And at this point I would like to remind you about the whole not maiming Stiles deal you agreed to, because there is some seriously weird shit associated with this.”

Derek looked up at that. Stiles leaned forward in his chair, excitedly.

“OK, so, the first Hale in Beacon Hills was Thomas Hale, who moved here in the early 1860s. He built the house, and he was your great, great, great grandfather.” Stiles ticked off the greats on his fingers as he listed them. 

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“As you should. Well, I am pretty sure that great, great, great granddaddy Hale was a werewolf, and he was an alpha as well. His father was dead, the Beacon Hills Bugle said so, and had been a prospector who had come to California in the gold rush in 1849. I am also pretty sure he brought his son across with him, just the two of them. I can’t find a record of anyone else coming west with them. Anyway, they struck gold, or Thomas’s father struck gold, and when his father died Thomas inherited the lot, including the alpha power. That much we know from the newspaper reports when Thomas Hale moved into Beacon Hills.”

Derek nodded. It seemed logical so far.

Stiles leaned even further forwards, lost his balance and fell in a confused heap at Derek’s feet. Derek reached down and hauled him up by the scruff of his plaid shirt, allowing Stiles a brief but close proximity to Derek’s body, a memory that deserved to be stored up for future reference.

“Thanks. Right. So. Thomas married, and working from the age on his marriage certificate it seems that he was born circa 1840 or maybe 1839. So he must have been only a kid when he came to California. Which also seems to fit, because I am guessing that he and his father were running away from – maybe hunters? Something, and probably hunters. Because why else would you drag a nine year old out into the Californian gold fields? It was not place for kids. There had to be some kind of threat.”

Stiles paused, to let the brilliance of his deduction sink in.

“And working on that basis, I was able to trace a Thomas Hale, born in 1840”. Stiles beamed in triumph. “He was born in Douglas, on the Isle of Man”

Derek seemed impressed by the extent of the research scope that Stiles was able to bring to bear, but not particularly astounded by this revelation.

“Great. Isle of Man. So what?”

Stiles remembered he was dealing with werewolf intelligence, which he was beginning to think was more Troll like than anything else. Harry Potter had lied to him. Lupin would have understood far earlier than this. “The Isle of Man. With Manx cats, which do not have tails. And the symbol of the Isle of Man is a Triskele, or Triskelion, or…” Stiles paused for dramatic effect “or, tree cassyn, in the local Manx dialect”.

Derek did sit up at that. “You are sure?”

Stiles flailed his arms a little. “Yes of course I am sure, I am always sure. Have you not met me? Do you not know what I do? I have double and triple checked everything.”

“So, the rhyme is a reference to the Isle of Man?”

Stiles blew out a breath of relief. Derek seemed to be getting it. “Yes. And don’t think the irony is lost on me, that the Hale WEREWOLVES come from the Isle of MAN. This is where the whole Agatha Christie thing comes in. She wrote a mystery story ‘Manx Gold’ in the 1930s as part of some kind of publicity stunt for the island, which had clues in rhyme form. Just like the ‘Musgrave Ritual’ and the Hale rhyme. My theory is that information is passed down the generations of Manx families in rhyme or some other kind of oral tradition, and Christie just adapted that.”

Stiles paused, to order his thoughts. Derek, meanwhile, sat still – possibly in rapt attention at Stiles’s brilliance. Then again, possibly not.

“Right, so, Isle of Man. And the tree cassyn is the Triskele which seems to tie everything together. But I could not get a handle on the three seas. I mean the Isle of Man is an island, obviously, but it is in the middle of one sea, the Irish Sea. But I could not track down the three seas because it is not three seas. It is three Cs”.

Derek interrupted here. “Words are coming out of your mouth, but they are not making any kind of sense. It is not the three seas, it is the three seas?”

Stiles was starting to question werewolf evolution. How much clearer did he need to be? Scott had grasped the J curve theory of international trade and foreign exchange faster than this. OK, maybe that was an exaggeration, but not much of an exaggeration. 

“Three Cs. Letter C. Which clearly implies that there are three things that the Hale alpha must manage to do, beginning with the letter C. When that is accomplished then the Hale alpha becomes the true Hale alpha, or alphas in this case because I think it applies to Scott as well.”

Derek looked somewhat defeated. “But what the Hell do the Cs stand for? It could be anything. How on earth am I supposed to know what the Cs are?”

Stiles was offended. “Dude, do you never pay attention? I know what the three Cs stand for, and I know what you have to do. At least, I am 90% certain I know what you have to do. The Cs are cloan; coheshaght; cooish graih. I found them on an antique bit of furniture”. Stiles swivelled around in his chair with a violent energy, and pulled up a photo he had downloaded from Alf’s Antiques – Alf’s Antiques, which just so happened to be based in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man. He handed the laptop to Derek so he could get a good look.

“You see – alpha, beta, omega in the middle, and cloan, coheshaght, cooish graih round the outside. I think that you have to marry up the inner and the outer parts in some kind of way. The Hale alphas get their strength from the fact that they are not just alphas. They are simultaneously betas and omegas. They are all three forms a wolf can take at the same time. You are a sort of omni-wolf, giving you omnipotence in werewolf terms. If one aspect of you is an alpha, another aspect of you has to be beta, and another has to be omega. Which is why the secret had to be a secret. Presumably the Hale alpha is vulnerable as a beta or as an omega, and another wolf could take advantage of the Hale alpha when he or she is in beta or omega mode. So only the alpha and their most trusted pack members would know the secret. But the whole pack could know that the Triskele represented alpha, beta, omega, and everyone could know that it represented the fact that a wolf could be any of those things. And the rhyme was an insurance policy, the key to the secret.”

Derek handed the laptop back. He was looking impressed. Still darkly brooding, of course, but impressed. His left and right pec muscles seemed to both be twitching, which was the closest to positive endorsement Stiles had ever had from Derek. And also something Stiles could watch for hours at a time. Derek waited a moment, before pointedly clearing his throat and dragging Stiles from his reverie. 

“Right, so, the issue is what you need to do. The three Cs are easy enough to work out, and I think you need to be alpha in one, beta in another and omega in the third. And again, I want to remind you of the no harm to Stiles agreement that we have going on.”

Derek looked at him. “Why would I want to harm you? More than normal I mean.”

“I warned you, this is going to be weird. So if you could just confirm that you are not going to so much as push me into a wall over this”.

“Just get on with it”. Stiles waited. “I promise. No harm to Stiles. Today.”

That was as good as Stiles was likely to get. “OK then. So. The alpha is obvious. Alpha means alpha of the pack. And that marries up to coheshaght, which is Manx for pack of hounds. And you are just going to have to live with the dog reference because there aren’t any wolves on the Isle of Man, at least not wolf wolves, so I guess they were adapting the language.”

Derek nodded curtly.

“The omega is also pretty clear, for you and for Scott. An omega is a lone wolf, one cast out, or packless, or without ties, right?”

Again with the curt nod from Derek.

“Well I think the omega for both of you is cloan. Which is Manx for something like family circle, or descendants, or at least paternal ties. You lost your family, of course, and Scott’s father is a jerk who walked out on Scott and his mum. So I think that you and Scott both think of yourselves or behave as omegas with regards to your family or fathers. You are lone wolves in this regard”

Derek’s gray eyes were looking suspiciously shiny again. Stiles averted his gaze, lowering his eyes to contemplate Derek’s abs instead. After a long moment, Derek cleared his throat and muttered “That could be true, I guess.”

Stiles contemplated the ridged planes of Derek’s stomach for a little while longer, before raising his eyes again. “So you already have the alpha and the omega parts. Which leaves the beta. And I think that the fact that neither you nor Scott have a beta aspect is what is making you so unsettled at the moment. It is like a three legged stool with one leg missing, which explains why the two of you are such a pair of failwolves most of the time, and why I have to keep rescuing your sorry butts from danger, and….” Stiles noticed Derek’s glare at this point, and thought it might be a good time to stop the current train of thought. “So, yes, beta, which equates to cooish graih. Which means, sort of, love. But romantic love. And it also means intimacy. So reading between the lines, I think it means physical love in this sense. You need to be a beta at sex.”

A long silence followed this remark. Stiles gulped nervously as Derek stared at him. The only thing Derek seemed to be moving was his eyebrows, which were coming closer together in a rather ominous manner.

“Look, I have gone over this half a dozen times. I really don’t see any alternative explanation. That is what the translation means, and the other two parts, the alpha and the omega work out perfectly. And it has to be worth a try at least? You need to go get laid, but with someone who, shall we say, takes a more forceful line? I am not talking bondage or anything.” Stiles could feel his cheeks heating up, as he started blushing. “No whips, or collars, or leather – though you might enjoy….” Stiles stopped himself. “You don’t want to be an omega in sex is what I am saying, but a beta. I mean that you need to find someone who takes the lead with you. Orders you about a bit. Tells you what to do”

Derek had turned very pale. He was looking shocked, staring with a somewhat glassy expression directly ahead, not focusing on Stiles any more. He seemed to be fixated on some far off point, maybe some far off memory?

“So what you need to do is find some woman on whom you can exercise the Derek Hale charm, get her to sleep with you, but get her to take the lead. Perhaps an older woman? More likely to boss you about a bit? A younger woman will just go weak at the knees if you flash that smile of yours at her.”

Derek had tensed even more at Stiles’s suggestions, but they were good suggestions and Stiles knew it.

“And… this is going to sound weird” Derek seemed to focus in at that, and looked in some disbelief at Stiles “OK, more weird. But the best way to test if it works is if you get her to bite you. Because if you are a beta during sex or in this aspect of your life, then she will leave a mark, and it will heal more slowly. I don’t think it is essential, but it would be a pretty good test. I am not sure how you work “bite me” into the post sex discussion, because I don’t have a whole lot of experience in post sex discussions.” Talking to the computer screen probably did not count, in Stiles’s honest opinion. “Oh, and obviously they need to be human. It would be too big a risk to do this with a wolf.”

Derek was staring ahead with the glassy eyed expression again.

“And I need you to come back and tell me if it works. I don’t want all of the details, but I will need some. And if it does work, and you get your super-alpha powers, then I can get Scott to do the same thing. And we will have two super alphas, able to take anything the alpha pack can throw at Beacon Hills.”

Derek was still staring off into the distance. Could werewolves go into shock, Stiles wondered? But why was Derek going into shock? True, he was being told to go screw around, but Derek must have sex every once in a while, surely? Looking like that, how could he not? Perhaps it was the idea of being bossed around in bed. Stiles could imagine that Derek was always the dominant one, standing over his partner, flexing his muscles and forcing them to…. Stiles swallowed drily. 

“So, can you do that for me buddy? Head off, have sex, be a beta to some dominating but not too dominating older woman, and come back and tell me all about it?”

Derek refocused on Stiles. He gave slow nod of his head, silently stood and then walked somewhat robotically out of the door. Stiles thought about calling after him to give him his T shirt back, but then thought again. As he heard the sound of the Camaro engine gunning down the road, Stiles slipped out of his shirt, T shirt, and jeans, and pulled Derek’s abandoned T shirt over his head. With the warm, woodsy smell of Derek gently enveloping him, Stiles felt calm for the first time in a long time. He crawled under his duvet, and let his hand drift down the soft fabric, the surprisingly soft fabric of Derek’s T-shirt, towards the aching hardness of his dick.


	10. Miscommunication to the power of three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek clearly saw him as a friend with benefits; no, not even that - a research app with benefits.

Derek was holding Stiles close as they lay side by side, his arms wrapped around Stiles as he nuzzled into his bare neck while telling him how much he loved him, and just how important Stiles was to him. Derek was murmuring with a vibrant undercurrent of emotion in his tone of voice, as he lazily stroked Stiles’s arm. He was a soft whisper into Stiles’s ear, breathing words that only Stiles was to ever going to know, his warm breath tickling against the sensitive skin just behind Stiles’s ear – a special touch point that only Derek knew about. They were both naked, but it was not the physical nakedness that had made Stiles’s heart flutter – it was the fact that they were so open with one another that caused a deep pull of longing in Stiles. This was a Derek that did not shrug off Stiles’s attempts at reassurance, or at comforting, or at physical closeness. This was a Derek that wanted all of those things, and wanted to reciprocate all of those things, and welcomed the intimacy between them. This was a Derek that belonged to Stiles in the same all-pervasive way that Stiles belonged to Derek. This was a Derek that would take Stiles up in his muscled arms, and hold him into a crushing embrace while kissing Stiles with a fevered passion. This was a Derek that would walk hand in hand with Stiles down the main street of Beacon Hills and dare anyone to criticise.

In his half-awake state Stiles could smell the spicy undertones of Derek’s scent on his skin, and feel his soft caresses, like the feather light touch of a soft fabric moulding itself against his body. Stiles hugged Derek back, feeling his warmth between his arms. He smiled quietly to himself, a smile of complete contentment, and slowly opened his eyes.

Stiles found himself hugging, not Derek, but his pillow – held tight to his chest. The smell of Derek, the soft touch of Derek was nothing more than Derek’s T shirt that he had put on after Derek had left. And of course Derek had left. Why on earth would Derek stay, after he had gotten the necessary information from Stiles? What possible reason would six foot of muscled werewolf, with an inhuman level of hotness, have for hanging round someone like Stiles? All of a sudden Stiles felt a deep emptiness, a loneliness that overwhelmed him. He shoved the pillow to one side and rolled over onto his back. It was stupid to get worked up over Derek like that. It was just a fantasy. Derek would never be interested in someone like him. Derek just looked on him as an annoying adolescent with a knack for research. He had probably never given Stiles a thought beyond that, and certainly would never think of him in any kind of emotional way. And clearly would never consider him in a physical way. Stiles needed to get over this. He had great friends who cared for him, and if he had not found anyone who cared for him in that way, he should count himself lucky to have the friends that he had. And if those friends did not include a dark, brooding, alpha he should not get worked up about it. 

Stiles reached for his phone to check the time. It was gone almost two o’clock, he had slept right through the morning – but it was Sunday morning so it did no matter particularly. Scott would be at the clinic today, so Stiles had nothing special to do. He hauled himself out of bed and headed for the shower.

 

 

Stiles went resolutely into anti-wallowing mode, with the same determined focus he brought to everything he did. He texted Scott, to sort out a time to hang out on Monday. He buried Derek’s T shirt at the back of his wardrobe. He headed out in the Jeep (windows down, stereo on louder than normal) to grab a burger and two portions of curly fries. And with the essential supplies secured he headed back home to find something to distract him from introspective moping. 

It was half way through the second box of curly fries that inspiration hit. Booting up his laptop, Stiles downloaded the front and back photos of Derek that he had taken the night before. He pulled them into an app, and started to manipulate them both. Within an hour he had managed to turn the image of Derek into a sort of animated mannequin puppet, with jointed arms and legs, which would move around at Stiles’s bidding. Another hour of careful manipulation and he had a stop frame style film of Derek dancing gangnam style in a ridiculous routine, his head bobbing from side to side like a metronome – a sour glare of resignation on his face. The finishing touch took a further half hour to perfect, but at the end of it he had recorded a repeated chorus of “The true Hale alpha can only mean…” in a tone that he electronically altered to sound like elves on helium. Combining it all together he had finally got Derek to do a dance routine to accompany the rhyme, even if only in the virtual world and not in the real world.

Stiles was admiring the sheer brilliance of his handwork for the sixth time, when there was a knock at his bedroom door. Quickly he clicked the app closed – only his father ever knocked (apart from Lydia that one time). Scott just barged in, consequences be what they may. Stiles felt that explaining to his dad why he had a dancing, semi naked Derek Hale on his computer screen might take a lot of effort, and he did not want to go through that right now. Derek Hale safely put back in the file on his hard drive, Stiles shouted for his dad to come in.

The door opened, and Stiles lifted his eyes from the economics related website he had fortuitously had open in the background as emergency cover, only to gasp (quietly) in surprise. It was not his dad. Derek, and only Derek, stood in Stiles’s doorway. And he had clearly opened the door himself, which meant he was getting the hang of the whole opposable thumbs deal. 

“Was the window broken?”. Sarcasm was always Stiles’s first line of defence, though he would be the first to admit that this was not the best line he could have come up with. But Derek standing in his doorway was unexpected, and some allowance would have to be made for the shock. Plus, there was a reasonable chance that his werewolf senses had detected what Stiles had been up to with the computer.

Derek did not look quite right. He was not barging into the room like an aggressive storm cloud of dark leather and thunderous eyebrows. He was shuffling his feet in the doorway, and refusing to make eye contact with Stiles – in spite of the fact that Stiles’s dark brown eyes were universally acknowledged to be well worth making contact with (if by universe, the universe consisted of Stiles. And Danny after too many beers).

“Come in”. Stiles wondered briefly if one had to invite a werewolf in, like a vampire, if they came in via a door, but that made no sense. He had never invited Scott in, and the window never posed an obstacle to Derek. A flash of insight suddenly hit him, and as Derek slowly moved into the room he suddenly blurted out “Did you do it? Have you had sex? Did it work? Could you get her to bite you? Do you feel OK? She didn’t dominate too much, did she? We don’t want to be trying to deal with an Alpha-Omega-Omega scenario because I am not sure I know how to repair that. You are Alpha-Beta-Omega, right? Are you properly balanced? Because I have to say dude, you don’t look properly balanced. You are looking shifty. Why are you looking shifty? You don’t normally look shifty. Shifty is not a good look on you. Creepy, yes, but not shifty. What is the matter?”

Derek seemed to be finding the tops of his shoes of considerable interest. And seemed to have lost the use of his vocal chords. Stiles started to panic.

“Dude – what happened? Did you find someone? Why not start out slow, and tell me a step at a time? Baby steps. Or cub steps. Or whatever. You went to a bar? Or to the personal ads?”

“No”

Well, at least that was evidence that Derek’s vocal chords were not damaged beyond repair. Though Stiles was still perturbed by the rather low growl that seemed to accompany the monosyllable.

“No? No what?”

“No nothing. No sex. No attempt.”

“Oh.” Stiles felt a little bit of a flutter in his stomach, but resolutely pushed that sentiment down. That way lay madness. “Do you want me to look online and see if I can find someone on Craig’s list or something?”

Derek looked up at that point, with a rather angry expression, and then looked down quickly as he caught Stiles’s eye.

“No. It is too dangerous to do this with someone who does not know. I need… If I am going to find balance I mean… I am going to have to…I can’t… It has to be… I need…”

Derek was even less articulate than usual, and was staring down at his shoes with an intense ferocity that he normally only put into his glaring at Stiles. But he seemed to be blushing. Stiles was totally bemused by the whole display.

“I need… The other person has to understand what… I want, I mean I need…. I mean it needs to be you.”

Stiles stared at Derek with his mouth hanging slightly open. Derek lifted his head momentarily, and then looked back down at his shoes. He muttered out in a deep throated growl “I… I think… you have to sleep with me”.

Stiles’s brain fused.

 

 

The silence seemed to stretch on indefinitely. Aeons passed. Empires rose and fell. Civilisations came and went. And still Stiles stared in open mouthed amazement at Derek, while struggling to remember how to talk. He had definitely been able to talk, a bit, long, long ago. Derek looked up at him, finally, in a sort of defiantly embarrassed way. 

Stiles seemed to find a voice which sounded nothing like his, and which had all sorts of weird inflections. “You want me to sleep with YOU?”

Derek looked hurt and defensive for a moment, and then his face resumed some semblance of its normal sarcastic snarl. Derek’s tone was aggressive and aggrieved and somehow subdued all at the same time. “It would just be sex, Stiles. Nothing more. Just physical. But only if you are capable of handling it.” 

Something in Stiles died. This was cold. Derek clearly saw him as a friend with benefits; no, not even that - a research app with benefits. Derek was using him like a lab rat to test a theory on. And, OK the theory was Stiles’s theory, but still. Stiles forced his mouth closed and arranged his features into a mask of indifference. Which he most certainly was not feeling. But if Derek wanted him to, what? Service him? Rebalance him? Stiles could prove he was a grown adult capable of making rational, mature decisions.

“You want me to treat you like a beta, and have sex with you?”

“Wasn’t that the general idea?”

No, not it was not the general idea. The general idea was that Derek would have a random one night stand with some never to be seen again woman, and he would come back a fully rebalanced, all powerful alpha. The general idea was not that Stiles sacrifice his virginity (not that he had been saving it especially) in some kind of mechanical, meaningless act of sex. Stiles drew in a deep breath. Mature. Rational. No emotion. He made sure his voice was calm and steady, and said “Sure. Just sex. 

Derek looked a little shocked, and then looked down at his shoes again. His shoulders seemed to sag a little.

“So how do you want to do this?” Stiles was striving for calm.

“Aren’t you supposed to be telling me?” Derek muttered to his shoes.

“I guess.” Stiles heart rate was accelerating. “But this is not some kinky domination thing. Remember that.” Stiles paused, about to give the matter some thought, and then realised that if he started thinking about this there was a very good chance he would break down and cry. This was so not what he had ever fantasised about, ever.

“OK beta-boy. Let’s see you naked.”

Derek lifted his head a little. “Now?”

“Yes now. Come on, get the clothes off.”

Derek seemed to shrink a little, and refused to look up properly as he slowly pulled off his leather jacket, and hung it from a handle on Stiles’s chest of drawers. The dark T shirt slowly came off, the muscles of his torso rippling in a way that had already got Stiles physically interested. Derek carefully folded the T-shirt, and placed it on top of Stiles’s chest of drawers. Derek undid his shoe laces, and took off the shoes (neatly placed side by side beneath the jacket) and then took off his socks and put them in the corresponding shoe. Stiles stared in fascination at him – the ordered, obsessive, slightly weird way he was going about things. Derek turned his back to Stiles and undid his belt. The jeans were shucked down and Stiles caught his breath at the sight of the Derek’s muscular ass. The thighs, too, were worthy of attention – muscles taut as Derek bent over to retrieve his jeans. Holy hell, a naked Derek Hale was bending over in front of Stiles, and Stiles was about to… was about to… was about to hyperventilate if he did not distract his attention quickly.

Derek placed his folded jeans on top of his T shirt, and then placed his hands either side of the pile of clothes on top of the chest of drawers. He seemed to be drawing some deep breaths, as if psyching himself up for something. Stiles was drawing some pretty deep breaths himself. The muscles of Derek’s back seemed to drag his eyes down to the jutting curve of his buttocks, and Stiles had an insane desire to run over to Derek and bite into the smooth skin of his ass. 

Derek seemed to have overcome whatever it was he needed to overcome – Disgust? Loathing? Repulsion? Stiles was sure it was something like that. He slowly turned around, though still averting his eyes, to stand naked in front of Stiles. Stiles took in another deep breath that might have been a gasp. Derek was hard. And no amount of night time fantasising or internet research had prepared Stiles for the sight of Derek, with his cock pointing firmly up towards the perfection of his abs, the dark hair around his balls softening out onto his thighs. And, how could those thighs even exist like that? Derek stood, looking anywhere but at Stiles, and Stiles stood, looking at everywhere that was Derek. 

Derek’s cock seemed to twitch a couple of times – Stiles noticed because it seemed to demand attention – and the movement caused Stiles to remember that he was supposed to be in charge. In a throaty voice that sounded nothing like his own, he forced out “onto the bed then, beta boy. On your back”.

Derek looked up at him briefly, then back down at his now bare feet. He moved slowly to the bed, and lay down. The view only improved, from Stiles’s perspective. He licked his lips nervously, and let his eyes travel up and down Derek’s naked form. Derek had closed his eyes, and seemed to be muttering something to himself. At least, Stiles could see his lips moving slightly.

Hours of internet research had paid off. Stiles was functioning on an almost autopilot-like function as he walked over to the side of his bed, and reached underneath for the bottle of lube he kept there. His fingers trembled a little as he undid the top. Derek was still lying with is eyes closed. Stiles moved to stand between Derek’s legs, and looked down. “You sure about this?” He felt he had to ask. He got a curt nod for his trouble, and Derek’ refusal to acknowledge his presence, refusal to accept that Stiles was a fellow human (well, ok, was a human) who might have, you know, feelings and stuff, pushed Stiles into a surge of anger.

“OK then, beta boy”. Stiles put the lube onto the bed, and pulled off his shirt and T shirt, casting them to one side. The sleeve of his shirt caught Derek’s arm as it fell to the floor, and Derek opened his eyes to look at Stiles. His eyes flickered down, wavering back and forth over the pale naked skin of Stiles’s chest, before coming to a halt on the line of dark fur that led from Stiles’s navel down to the waistband of his jeans. Stiles’s own abs tensed under the scrutiny, and Stiles could feel himself flushing red – could he be any more like a blushing virgin if he tried? Stiles’s fingers fumbled with the belt of his jeans, and he could feel his hands shaking as he pushed at the jeans and his boxer briefs, trying to get both articles of clothing off in one go. He bent to step out of the tangled mass of fabric, leaning forward as he did so, until he realised that his head was just inches from Derek’s cock. A solid, powerful cock, leaking precum at the tip and jumping slightly with a nervous energy that Stiles could not quite interpret. Stiles started back, and with the jeans and boxers tangled around his ankles almost fell backwards. Fortunately Derek seemed to have closed his eyes again, and was breathing in deep breathes while moving his lips as if in silent communication with himself. Or perhaps he was trying to tell Stiles something? Stiles did not want to know what it was if so, as it would undoubtedly be ridicule or something. 

Stiles disentangled himself and stood between Derek’s thighs again, determined to handle the situation without any further humiliation. He opened the lube, and poured some into his palm, before covering his right index finger. He moved his hand towards Derek’s hole, feeling heat radiating from between Derek’s thighs, and watching as a little more precum leaked from the head of Derek’s cock. Stiles bit his lower lip, and moved his finger to start coating Derek’s entrance in lube – quickly. Stiles was not sure he wanted to linger, giving a suggestion of intimacy that clearly was not going to be reciprocated or appreciated. Derek’s whole body seemed to go rigid as Stiles touched him – perhaps he should have warmed the lube first, or something?

After a minute, Stiles recoated his finger and returned to Derek’s entrance. Derek’s muscles seemed to have relaxed a little so as Stiles swirled lube around, he gently pushed in at the tight ring of muscle. Derek tensed again, but Stiles was going to carry on. “Come on beta-boy, you know you want this” he said, in what he hoped was a controlled voice. Derek’s eyes fluttered open in response, and he looked into Stiles’s eye – for the first time all evening. Quickly he averted his gaze, and Stiles felt the sense of rejection surge in him again. He pushed his index finger in deeper. It was a whole new experience, feeling Derek’s muscles contort around his finger, feeling the warmth of his body envelope him, as he pushed as far as he could go. A moan, not that must have been a grunt of discomfort, it could not have been a moan, came out of Derek.

“You are so, frickin’, tight” Stiles said. It was a line he had often heard in the course of his internet researches, and it seemed the thing to say. Stiles had no idea whether Derek was tight or not. He had no comparison – his attempts at fingering himself had never gone this deep, and clearly there was no one else he could have experience of. Stiles pulled out, lubed up his middle finger, and slowly began to push them back into Derek. The grunt came again, longer, louder, and again sounding a lot like a moan. Stiles was going to pretend it was a moan. Derek’s cock was jerking repeatedly now, and Stiles’s own dick was rock hard, leaking precum onto Derek’s thighs where he was rubbing against him. God, that was embarrassing. Or was it? Was this normal? He could see the trails of moisture matting the leg hair of Derek’s inner thigh.

Stiles stared down at Derek, as he lay beneath him. Derek’s taut body. Stiles’s fingers in him, moving slightly in and out. Stiles’s hormone levels seemed to spike, he was going to come all over Derek without actually doing anything. Stiles pulled his fingers out quickly, but even that action seemed to push him closer to the brink. The sight of his fingers leaving Derek, knowing how deep he had been...

Stiles tried to speak, but managed an incoherent throaty sound that he tried to turn into a cough. He started again “OK beta boy, your ass is mine”, and God he was sounding like a cheesy porn movie. Probably because these lines were from cheesy porn movies. Well, not the beta bit. That was a Stilinski special addition. Derek spoke for what seemed the first time in an hour.

“Stiles.” There was a pause. “Stiles, just… just get on with it. Fuck me already.”

The voice was raw, and Stiles realised that of course Derek would want this over as quickly as possible, so he could go back to brooding over his collection of leather jackets and revelling in his new found powers. Assuming this worked. It had better work. Stiles did not rate his survival chances terribly high if it did not work. But at least he would not die a virgin.

Stiles pushed Derek’s left leg up and wide, opening him further. He quickly coated his own dick with the remains of the lube – a fair amount of which seemed to have already found its way onto the sheets. Just touching himself brought on electric shock-like sensations. Stiles bent forwards, reflexively putting his right hand out to steady himself, and grasped the pulsing heat of Derek’s cock as he did so. Derek grunted again, and one of his hands came up rapidly to hold Stiles’s wrist. Stiles assumed it was to pull his hand away, but Derek apparently remembered he was supposed to be the beta, because he left the hand in place, and started to move it up and down his length.

Stiles clumsily, one handedly, manoeuvred his dick to Derek’s entrance, and pushed. In internet porn this bit seemed so effortless, but he was finding it difficult to coordinate, and to get inside Derek. His legs felt like jelly, and the ache in his dick was dominating his focus. Derek was still moving their joined hands up and down his own cock, and he seemed to be grasping so that Stiles’s hand applied pressure as he went. After a few more moments of clumsy fumbling, the tip of Stiles’s dick suddenly broke through Derek’s ring of muscle, and he could feel the warmth of Derek’s body around him again – but this was so much more than when it had just been his fingers. Stiles gasped, and Derek’s eyes flew open again.

Stiles pushed in, and could feel the powerful muscles of Derek’s ass press against the front of his own thighs as he just pushed through. Derek seemed to be groaning again – Stiles was not going slow, there was not time to go slow. He pulled back a little way and thrust again – Derek working their hands on his own cock the meanwhile. Stiles thrust a third time, and then knew this was not going to last much longer. He was staring down at the muscles of Derek’s stomach, at the frantic movement of their joined hands. Just as he was about to pull back for another thrust, Derek’s body seemed to tense, certainly Stiles could feel him tensing around his dick, and the pressure was too much. Stiles came in shuddering motion, drawing a cry of “Fuuuuck” from his lips. Stiles’s right hand seemed to be covered in cum at the same time – had he somehow pulled out and cum over himself? Stiles was confused, before realising that Derek must have cum around the same time. There were streaks of wetness running up Derek’s torso. Stiles followed the trail up with his eyes – up to Derek’s face, with the eyes resolutely closed.

Stiles began to feel the tension building in him. He had just had sex. Sex with Derek Hale. And he had been awful. He had come within seconds, barely managed to thrust in a couple of times. He had rushed everything. He was the worst lover ever – not even a lover, as this was only physical for Derek, and had to have been bad physical sex. No one was ever going to want to be with him if this was what he was like. Stiles would end up alone, no one would ever want to have a relationship with him, someone so incaable of providing any physical saisfaction to his partner. Stiles knew what was about to happen. This was the onset of a panic attack. Frantic breathing, sweating, crying – he was going to totally humiliate himself. 

Stiles stood stock still while he tried to remember what Dr. Cullen had told him to do. Control breathing. Don’t be distracted. Concentrate on getting things under control. Derek was talking at him in the background, seemingly urgently, but Stiles tuned him out – tuning out the fact that Derek was holding his arms too. Derek’s complaints and sarcasm would have to wait. Stiles ignored him, and concentrated on bringing himself under control.

After a couple of minutes, he was there. Stiles looked down awkwardly at Derek – Stiles was still in Derek, his cock softening rapidly, and his cum starting to leak between Derek’s thighs. Derek was looking at him with a weird, somewhat expectant expression. As Stiles looked down at him, Derek’s face seemed to harden.

“Right.”

Derek’s voice was subdued again.

“Just sex.”

Stiles nodded silently. It was as if Derek had added “and barely even sex”. He could not have made his feelings more clear. Stiles remembered what he had to do, however. Through the growing cloud of misery that threatened to overwhelm him, he pulled out of Derek and then leant down. Putting his face close to Derek’s side, Stiles closed his eyes, and suddenly bit. Derek yelped – there was no other word for it.

Stiles pulled back, and looked down. “The mark is not healing” he said flatly. “You should be rebalanced. Do you feel different?”

Derek looked down at his side. Slowly he nodded his head. “You were right.” There was a pause. “is that it? I mean, is once enough?”

Stiles grasped at the tattered shreds of his emotions. Of course, Derek would want that to be it. After his performance that evening he doubted Derek would ever want to see him again. Except perhaps to mock him. “I don’t know. It might be on the lunar cycle. The full moon revitalises the wolf in you, so… and I can’t imagine this would have been as big a secret in your family as it was if it was a one off thing. If it was one off the alpha would have been vulnerable only the once, the pack could have known. If it needs to be renewed the alpha has to be a beta more often. I am sure you can find someone who can help you better than I can.”

Derek seemed to be refusing to look at Stiles again. Slowly he rolled off the left side of the bed, made his way over to the chest of drawers, and began pulling on his clothes. He had made no effort to clean himself up, and Stiles saw the fabric of Derek’s jeans darken as he buckled his belt. When he was dressed Derek moved towards the window, resolutely avoiding eye contact the whole while. 

“Thanks”. It was said in the same flat accent as earlier, no emotion. A man, a werewolf trying to keep the tone of disgust out of his voice, Stiles thought. A moment later, he was gone. 

Stiles threw himself face first onto his bed, clutching at his pillow. He stared, dry eyed, at the plastic skeleton hanging on the back of his door as he hugged the pillow closer to him.

Stiles had a sudden, terrible thought that just piled on the humiliation. He might not be a virgin, but he had still never been kissed. Because who would want to kiss him? Who would want to sleep with him, if it wasn't out of absolute necessity. Some dam inside Stiles suddenly broke, and as he buried his head in his pillow again, he began to sob.


	11. Bromance cubed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott looked at him uncomprehendingly – for of course Scott was oblivious to the reality of Stiles’s existence as wing man to the Bella Swan of Beacon Hills.

Stiles woke on Monday morning. Summer vacation meant no reason to get up. The way his life sucked to such an unbelievable extent meant no reason to do anything. He lay in bed, staring dully at the ceiling. He wanted to wallow in his misery for a while, to push at the raw emotional wounds that had been left from the previous night. He had brought this on himself, he knew that Derek was way out of his league – hell, Derek was a completely different sport, never mind a different league. And Stiles’s first attempt at sex had been with… Stiles’s face started to burn red, and he pulled his pillow over him to block out reality. It was unfortunate that the pillow smelled faintly of Derek, and Stiles groaned hollowly.

From the side of his bed his Samsung phone went through a quick ringtone – Crystal Fighters, “At Home”, a quick seven second burst (from 1 minute 14 seconds to 1 minute 21 seconds, Stiles knew, which including the key phrase “never thought I’d get to be with my best friend”). Which meant Scott had texted. Stiles deliberated ignoring it, but he never ignored Scott. Even when they fought, he never actually ignored him. He paid attention without speaking, which was not really the same thing.

Stiles reached out and read the text “Be with u in 30, running late”. Stiles remembered texting Scott on Sunday to arrange to meet up today as part of his anti-moping containment strategy. But yesterday’s anti-moping had been before everything that had happened last night. And Stiles was not sure that an afternoon of gaming with Scott was going to be an antidote to that. Nothing except industrial quantities of alcohol, and possibly recreational drugs was going to be an antidote to last night, and he was not sure even that was going to numb the pain of the void. But Stiles was Stiles. With something to focus on, he focused. He pulled himself out of bed, and in thirty minutes had showered, grabbed a pizza for some breakfast lunch combination that his dad was never to know of, and downed the last of the apple juice. He was loading the dishwasher when Scott wandered in.

“Hey”. Stiles was going for nonchalant, as he looked at Scott. Scott, it seemed, was going for zoned out. He was staring in that far off, distant, goofy way he did from time to time. Stiles gave him a closer look. 

“Dude. You have leaves in your hair. Why do you have leaves in your hair? Have you been waking up in the woods again? Because I thought we were past all that? The sleep walking, the bed wetting, the scent marking and so on? It is time to put on the big-wolf pants and stop all that beta behaviour.” Actually, it was not quite time to stop the beta behaviour, but Stiles would get to that particular issue later on.

Scott seemed to focus on Stiles, and hastily ran his hands through his hair. A couple of leaves and a small twig were dislodged, though several leaves still remained, and he managed to completely change the way his hair looked. Seriously, Stiles thought, it must be a different life form.

“Hey Stiles. No, I…” Scott gave the goofy look, with a faint blush “I… that is, Allison and I went for a walk to talk things over a bit.”

Comprehension suddenly washed over Stiles. Accompanied by a sharp twist of pain in his chest. Stiles was happy for Scott, really he was. But all the same, misery loves company, and it was going to be difficult to hang out with his best friend if his best friend was floating on a little pink cloud of romantic bliss, when romance was clearly off the agenda for Stiles for the rest of his natural existence.

“Soooo, you worked things out? That is great, bro. I am happy for you. Sorry for Allison, of course, but happy for you.” Scott punched him on the shoulder for the Allison comment.

“We are taking it slow, but…” Scott tuned out again.

“Dude, that is great, really.” Stiles was trying hard, and it was one of those occasions when Scott was not going to notice how hard he was trying. If all was well in Scott’s little world, then all must be right with everyone else. Stiles was not going to burst the bubble.

Scott seemed to be coming back to reality. “Yeah. It’s awesome.” Another brief interlude for tuning in and out. Stiles was reminded of trying to get reception on his gran’s old radio. “But Stiles, you know what this means?”

“A lifetime of you ignoring my calls, and me sitting home alone on Friday night?”

Scott looked at him uncomprehendingly – for of course Scott was oblivious to the reality of Stiles’s existence as wing man to the Bella Swan of Beacon Hills. “Dude, what are you talking about? It means you have to help me with the whole focus thing. It was a bit better after the full moon, but I seem to have become less focused again. And I need to be focused to protect Allison, and protect my mum.” Stiles waited, eyebrows slightly raised. “And you dude, of course you. And school and everything. I can’t be held back a year. I have to keep my grades up, and all your help with tuition will be wasted if I can’t focus in class.”

“Relax Scott.” Stiles was wondering how best to tackle this subject. It was going to be awkward. “I know how to make you focussed, and how to make you a bigger, better werewolf too. But it is going to be a bit weird. Though I guess it is good you and Allison have gotten back together.”

Scott looked at Stiles with a mix of excitement and respect. It was like looking at an excited Labrador puppy. “You worked it out. You are the best, Stiles, honestly. I won’t ever forget this.”

“No, you probably won’t” Stiles said drily. Though dry humour was lost on Scott at the best of times, and there was no hope when he was in this state of agitation. Allison and the curse of the Hale alphas all wrapped into one was too much for him. “Look, it will be easier if I can explain this with the laptop. It is going to require visual aids.”

 

 

Scott bounded up the stairs ahead of Stiles, and literally bounced off the walls as he turned the corner towards Stiles’s room. The painting on the wall opposite Stiles’s door was pushed askew from his last ricochet. Stiles thought he had better get the situation under control promptly if Allison plus Hale alpha imbalance was producing these results. He then walked into Scott’s back. Scott had come to an abrupt halt in Stiles’s doorway. Stiles stepped back, rubbing his nose, somewhat surprised; WAS there some kind of vampire invite only thing going on?

“Dude, your room reeks of Derek. Why does your room reek of Derek? His scent is like, everywhere. Why is his scent everywhere?”

Crap. Stupid werewolves and their stupid noses. 

“Yes, about that. It is all part of the balance thing. At least, Derek has the same sort of issue that you have, and I was…. Working with him to… rebalance him. And as it worked on him, as a test were-guinea pig, I figured it was safe to try on you.”

Scott confined himself to a “Huh”, pushed through the door and then wandered restlessly around Stiles’s room, while Stiles sat down at the desk and fired up the computer.

“So, Scotty boy, you are a cadet branch of the House of Hale. Which means you inherit their hassles.” 

Scott looked bemused. “The Hales have an army? And why am I a cadet? I should be a general.” A semblance of a pout seemed to be building on Scott’s face. Stiles sighed inwardly, and explained.

“No, cadet branch. It means you are an offshoot of the Hale bloodline, and you are totally a general of that branch. A field marshal in fact. Alpha through and through. Which is why there is a problem.”

“Cool.” Scott seemed happy. “So Derek and I have some bond, alpha to alpha? What does that mean about the balance thing? Does it mean that… wait is that one of my special sparkly pens?”

Scott was staring into Stiles’s waste paper basket with an outraged look on his face. Stiles had to take control quickly, before tantrums kicked in.

“An unfortunate casualty of war. And it was your fault for leaving it here. And Derek’s fault for skulking around in dark corners.” Stiles ignored the stab of pain as he said Derek’s name. “Focus dude. And I’ll buy you a pack of sparkly pens when we have this sorted out.”

Scott appeared mollified, and sat on the edge of Stiles’s bed. “So what is it? What do I have to do?”

Stiles took Scott, step by step, through the whole Hale bloodline, the rhyme, what it meant. He did debate bringing up the Derek Hale dance routine clip he had perfected the day before, but thought better of it. He was not ready to see that. He explained the reason why Scott did not have a tail, the meaning of the key Manx words, and then came to the crunch of what it would all mean. The explanation took time, but Scott sat patiently through it, his mouth slightly agape with the sort of rapt attention that accompanied the realisation that one’s best friend was an awesome research genius. Stiles approved the look.

“So, Scott, you are an alpha of a pack, because you have me. And a very fine alpha you are too. And you are an Omega because of your dad.”

“Jerk” Scott muttered under his breath. He had gotten very worked up when Stiles had gone through that whole part of things with him.

“Yes, but it does mean that you just need to tick the beta box, and everything will be sorted. You get balance, focus, and become some kind of super alpha werewolf. You could become a superhero. Fight crime. That kind of thing.”

“But you said that the other part was sex?”

“Sex it is. You need to have a chat with Allison. Or, I guess I could have a chat with Allison, but I don’t think that would be very comfortable for either of us. I mean, it is one thing to discuss your sex life with you, but I am not sure I am up for going into details with Allison. She just needs to dominate you a bit in bed, or in the backseat of your mum’s car, or wherever. But never in the back of Stiles’s jeep. Never again. If that happens one more time, I swear I will put wolfsbane into the upholstery... Just remember that the beta sex thing mustn’t be too much. You need to be a beta, not an omega at this.”

Scott was looking somewhat shocked, and Stiles reflected that it was rather a lot to take in.

“You are sure about this?” 

Stiles tensed. What was it with werewolves and their doubting his truly awesome and never to be questioned research abilities? 

“Yes, of course I am sure. I told you, I went through it with Derek” (pain twinge) “and tested it, and it worked.”

Scott sat back on the bed. “Huh.” 

Stiles could see the mental processes gearing up as Scott’s jaw dropped open again and he turned his head slowly to look at Stiles. Crap. Double crap. No, no, no, no, no, no… too late. 

“So you… and Derek… finally got it together? I knew I could smell something else. God, is that Derek’s…. stuff… I can smell? It is, isn’t it? It is Derek and his… and yours… and lube… and you two…“ Scott leapt up off the bed, and looked reproachfully at Stiles. He was wiping the seat of his jeans with violent hand gestures. Then his face melted into some kind of puppyish, loved up look. “Aw-www. Stiles, bro, you and Derek? I am so happy for you. You are so right for each other. This is great. We can double date.”

Stiles took a deep breath. Now was not the time for a panic attack. He took another breath as Scott advanced, arms wide, for a hug. “No, Scott, it is not like that.”

Scott stopped, and looked perplexed. “But I can smell…”

“No, I mean, we had sex. Just sex. Very bad sex. There is nothing else to it. I am just – I dunno - offering my studly services out for the greater good?” Stiles stared down at his shoes. “This way Derek does not have to waste much time, clearly because I am just very bad, and he doesn’t have to waste any emotion, or get involved with anyone he likes or, anything… Just sex. Nothing else.”

Stiles was cut off as Scott enveloped him in a bone crushing hug, lifting him out of his desk chair. 

“Dude”

It was all Scott had to say. But it was enough for Stiles. He knew he did not have to explain any more. Scott was good at sensing this sort of emotional stuff, once his bubble had been penetrated. Stiles had not wanted to burden Scott with any of this, especially now he was getting on with Allison, but he was glad that Scott knew. It made things a little easier.

Scott let Stiles go and went to sit on the edge of the desk. 

“Are you OK?”

“No.” Stiles was going to be honest about this. “But it will be OK at some point. The more important thing is to get you sorted. Can you speak to Allison? I will if you insist, but…”

Scott had lowered his head and was hiding his eyes behind the curtain of his fringe again. He got off the desk and moved towards the door, before starting to fiddle with the plastic skeleton on the back of it.

Uh oh. Stiles had a bad sense about this.

“What is it? You just said you are back together. And I know you were having sex on a very regular basis before you temporarily split up. Because twice I caught you at it. So where is the problem?”

“It is just”. Scott was blushing furiously. “I want to take it slow. I don’t want to push too quickly. We agreed today that we would only, you know… when we were sure. When the whole hunter/werewolf star cross lovers thing was definitely behind us.”

Stiles was impressed with the Shakespeare reference. His English tuition was obviously sinking in. Perhaps some of the Dickens he had gotten Scott reading would have taken as well…Stiles forced his mind back onto the matter at hand. 

“So, you don’t want to push things too far. I get that. But dude, special circumstances and all?”

Scott just shook his head.

“Well, I don’t know any other way of getting you balanced again. It is definitely intimacy that does it. Although I guess it could be intimacy with anyone. Is there anyone you think you could try with? I mean, you are the ex co-captain of the championship winning lacrosse team, that might give you some pulling power?” Stiles was not terribly hopeful. Scott had always been socially awkward. It was a miracle Allison had pulled him up from his nerd depths. “Perhaps” Stiles paused for a moment, “perhaps Lydia would?”

Scott look horrified. “No way, dude. On so many levels, no.”

“But Scott, it is not safe for you, or for the rest of us, if you are unbalanced. You need to be at full strength with the alpha pack around.” 

Scott’s face adopted the strained expression it normally had when thinking deeply. He looked off towards the snowboarder mural on Stiles’s wall, and said carefully “There is an option other than Allison”

Stiles grasped at the opportunity “Dude, then take it. Getting you balanced has to be a priority. Who is it? Can you call her?”

“It’s you.”


	12. The third man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Greater love hath no man than this, that he should get his dick out for his friends”.
> 
> “Do not put that into your next English essay.”

Stiles just stared at Scott. 

“You want me to sleep with you?”

Scott went on hurriedly “This is not like whatever Derek did to you.” Scott’s eyes flashed red with momentary anger. “I mean, you know I love you, right? As a bro I mean. And, it is not going to be romantic, I know that, and I know you don’t feel like that about me. And I don’t want to run off into the sunset with you either. But I do love you, and I can’t imagine life without you around. If it is not going to be Allison, it couldn’t be anyone but you. I could not be intimate with anyone but you or Allison – even if I slept with someone else, it would not be intimate.”

Stiles knew this was not the right argument, because if intimacy meant what Scott seemed to be implying, it would never have worked with Derek - who had clearly found the whole experience repellent. But Scott was now staring at Stiles with puppy eyes.

“If you don’t want this, just say. I will stay unbalanced, and work on it. I can manage, and if you are in anyway unsure I will manage” Scott sounded determined, emphatic, as if telling himself he would control the problem. “I would never ask you to do something you weren't comfortable with doing. But if it is something you could do…”

Stiles found his voice. In the space of less than twenty four hours he had been propositioned by two werewolves, and neither was expected. A certain amount of stunned silence seemed valid, before his natural garrulousness reasserted itself. “I don’t want to change our friendship, dude. This would change” Stiles flailed his arms about in an all-encompassing motion “everything”.

“Me being a werewolf changed everything, but we survived” Scott pointed out. “Dude, seriously, it is up to you, entirely up to you. But there are only two people in my life with who I could ever imagine doing this with, and you are one of them.”

Stiles bit his lower lip. Scott just stood by the door, fiddling now with the hem of his long sleeved T shirt. Stiles thought through the process. This would be different. It was not like Derek. Scott cared for Stiles, loved him – albeit not quite in the way that was being proposed perhaps. But love with a physical aspect was something. It was not what Stiles had wanted, but what he wanted was clearly never going to happen to him. He inhaled a deep breath.

“OK. But I warn you, on the basis of past experience, I am crap at this.”

Scott gave a half smile. “You are sure about doing this, dude? Because I can see how much that jerk of an alpha hurt you. And I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you, or make it worse, or anything.”

Stiles looked at Scott, whose face was now showing earnest concern. “You won’t make it worse. Nothing could make it worse. You might even help make it better.”

Scott stepped forward and wrapped Stiles into another hug. Then he stepped back and pulled off his T shirt, throwing it to the floor. Stiles looked on surprised, before quickly turning to close the blind at the window behind his computer desk. “Dude, seriously, the neighbours…”

He turned back to find Scott already pulling off his second sneaker, throwing it into the opposite corner from the first, before tugging at his belt buckle. He pushed his jeans to the floor, and stood in front of Stiles, wearing his socks and Macy’s own label boxers.

“Are you really sure Stiles?”

Stiles was a little taken aback by the suddenness of it all, and Scott’s seeming enthusiasm. “Only if you take the socks off, bro. I mean, show some respect”

Scott bent to remove both socks, and stood back upright, wearing only his boxers. Confronted by this sudden exposure to the werewolf in its naked or near naked form for the second time in the space of a day, Stiles paused a moment to look at his friend. Scott was breathing quite deeply, his chest moving up and down. Despite the werewolf lineage, Scott was a complete contrast to Derek. Derek was pale, while Scott was tanned. Derek had a hardness to his muscles, with no body fat to soften the harsh sinews. Scott was well muscled too, especially his pecs – Stiles had caught Danny casting covetous glances in their direction a couple of times in the locker room – but he still had something of the softness of an adolescent. His abs were less pronounced, his pecs were not as flat as Derek’s. And Stiles resolved to stop making comparisons, and deal with the here and now.

“OK, puppy, get over here.”

“Stiles, I am only three months younger than you are.”

“Are you questioning me, cub?” Stiles tried to put an edge into his voice. “Over here, now.”

Scott walked across to where Stiles sat. Stiles stood up to look his friend in the face. “Lose the boxers”.

Scott bent down, pushed off his boxers, and threw them behind him. They landed somewhere near Stiles’s pillow. Stiles looked down. Scott was not hard, but he was not exactly soft either. 

“Get yourself hard then, puppy.” 

Scott licked at his lips, and then slowly moved his hand to cover his cock. Without breaking eye contact from Stiles, he moved his hand up and down in a slow rhythm. After a minute it was Stiles who broke his gaze to look down. Scott was definitely hard now. His cock was leaking precum slightly from its tip. Stiles noticed that, fully hard, Scott’s cock was longer than Derek’s had been, but not quite as broad, and Stiles was going to stop this now.

“Turn around”

Stiles’s voice was gruff, not because he tried to be but because that was how it came out. “And hands on your head, puppy. Where I can see them.”

Scott put his hands on the back of his head, as he turned to face away from Stiles. Stiles could see him in the mirror opposite, a slight smile on his face, his cock jutting out in front of him. Stiles put both hands on Scott’s nipples and tweaked, feeling the muscles of his pecs reacting. The smile disappeared from Scott’s face and a sharp hiss of breath being sucked in was audible. Scott closed his eyes, and he muttered “do that again, Stiles, please, do that again.”

Stiles slowly tweaked at each nipple in turn before running his hands towards each other, over the smooth, supple flesh of Scott’s chest. With Derek, for the very brief moment Stiles had put his hands on Derek’s chest while biting at the alpha, there had just been taut muscle and skin. With Scott, there was something to play with, and none of the hostility preventing some interaction. “You like that puppy, do you?” he whispered into Scott’s right ear. Scott shivered, as Stiles slowly moved his hands down Scott’s abs. Scott had no treasure trail at all – Stiles had always been a little smug about their relative body hair situations. Stiles slowly put his right hand onto Scott’s cock, and deliberately began to jerk it up. His left hand roamed randomly over Scott’s thighs and lower abs, eliciting little tremors of reaction, as if he were shocking Scott with some kind of low grade electricity.

“Come on then puppy, come for me.” Scott was moaning a little now, as Stiles picked up the pace, before pausing to rub his thumb just around the head of Scott’s cock. Scott moaned even louder, gasping out a little “Stiles, please… now Stiles”. Stiles let Scott hang on the edge of the abyss for a moment longer, before tightening his grip and pulling hard. Scott came with a high pitched yelping sound. Stiles felt the warm wetness on his fist. He could see Scott had his eyes tightly shut, as Stiles teased out the last dribbles of his cum.

As Scott stood, panting, with Stiles’s fist still around his softening cock, Stiles suddenly lent forwards and bit into Scott’s shoulder. 

“What the hell?” Scott yelped and pulled his shoulder away, his cock slipping out of Stiles’s grasp as he did so.

“Sorry, sorry, I should have told you.” Stiles looked at the bite marks, to watch with horror as they faded away. “Crap, Scott I am so sorry. That was the test. To see if you had become a beta for the moment. But it is healing. It didn’t work. Why didn’t it work? It worked for Derek? It should work for you.”

“Dude, what are you talking about? Why would it have worked already?” Scott slowly turned round. “I mean, I assumed that you were going to have to fuck me to get this to work. That was just foreplay, right? I mean, it was pretty good foreplay, as foreplay goes – you have a knack for that…”

Stiles looked at Scott. “You ASSUMED that I was going to have to fuck you? You were prepared for that?”

“Sure, I mean, from what I can smell in here that is what you had to do with Derek last night. And if you are really going to be alpha over me, presumably I have to expose my belly and my butt to your pleasure.” Scott suddenly looked alarmed. “Can you, though? I mean, will you be able to get hard with me? Or do you need to watch some porn or something?”

Stiles pulled himself together a bit. “Dude, I am seventeen. I can get hard from the vibrations when the Jeep grinds in second. The sight of your fine ass already has me halfway to attention.”

Scott sighed a huff of relief, then looked with a slight grimace at the bed. “Stiles, do you mind if I…?” He pulled the duvet over the top of the sheets, and lay down on top of it, on his back. “So, here I am. Yours for the taking.”

“Shut up”. Stiles stood irresolute at the end of the bed.

“Come on dude. You know it will work. You are Stiles the Silent, greatest researcher in the seven kingdoms. And you are an awesome best friend. Greater love hath no man than this, that he should get his dick out for his friends”.

“Do not put that into your next English essay.” Stiles still felt a secret glow of satisfaction as he stared down at Scott. The tuition had paid off, it seemed. “Before we go any further, are you feeling more balanced? I am not saying balanced, but have you moved in the right direction?”

Scott stopped to think. “Yes, you know what, I think I am”.

“Good”. Stiles pulled his T shirt over his head, his lean torso writhing slightly as he struggled to get out of one of the arms. “Then your werewolf ass is mine”. Jeans and boxers slid to the floor and he advanced slowly to the edge of the bed. Stiles was more than half hard now. The thought of more sexual gratification was overriding his concerns, as he groped under the bed for the lube bottle. It took some locating, having been thrown down rather energetically the night before. He lubed up his index and middle finger, and moved straight in to Scott’s hole.

“OK, puppy”. It was weird how comfortable Stiles felt talking to Scott during sex. But then he had always felt comfortable with Scott, right from when they had first met. Conversation with him now was not different. “You are ready to get a pounding on your little werewolf ass?”

Scott looked up at Stiles, and nodded slightly. Stiles moved his fingers slowly around Scott’s entrance, before coating another layer of lube on. “You ready for this, cub?”. Scott nodded again before drawing in a sharp breath as Stiles put his index finger slowly in, working his way round slightly as he moved back and forth. Scott seemed less resistant than Derek had been, Stiles noticed. Stiles suddenly brought his left hand down onto Scott’s ass, giving a resounding smacking sound that left a faint red outline. The fact that the mark lasted seemed to indicate that the alpha-beta deal was on track.

Stiles’s second finger went in slowly too. “You good there, puppy? You enjoying this?” Stiles reached out to touch Scott’s cock with his left hand. Scott was half hard again, but still seemed sensitive as he put his own hand there to restrain Stiles. 

“Please, Stiles, not yet. I am not ready yet”.

Stiles let his left hand drift up Scott’s stomach, tweaking here and there, as his right hand worked slowly in and out. “You ready for another finger?” Scott moaned something that might have been assent. Stiles pulled his fingers out, and applied a generous proportion of lube to his third finger, before returning to Scott’s ass.

“Ready?” Stiles began to insert his fingers, but was finding it difficult to get the third in. Scott was writhing a little on the bed. “Stay still Scott, damn you. I haven’t done three fingers before.” Scott went still very suddenly – the alpha command, perhaps? Or a desire to get more of Stiles in him? With the stillness, adding a third finger became easier. Still a bit of a struggle, but Stiles was there, and the warmth of Scott was around him. He pushed in, and brought his left hand back down Scott’s stomach to gently circle the tip of his cock. Scott was twitching spasmodically at that, almost whimpering in a painful kind of ecstasy.

“You ready for the big finale, puppy?” Stiles's voice was throaty with sexual energy. The sight of his three fingers opening Scott beneath him gave rise to a raw, lustful passion. He looked down at Scott, who just nodded weakly. Stiles pulled out his fingers, and grabbed the lube bottle. Scott lay still, breathing heavily and watching Stiles’s every movement. Stiles coated his dick, and positioned himself again at Scott’s entrance. Unlike with Derek the previous night, this time it seemed a little easier. Scott spread both his legs wide, and then bucked his hips and made a slight keening sound in the back of his throat as Stiles pushed in through the muscles. Stiles began to slowly push deeper, then moved his pelvis back. Scott seemed to be responding to him, moving his hips in a somewhat synchronised way as Stiles thrust back and forth a couple of times. Stiles reached down and grabbed at Scott’s cock with a firm grip, causing Scott to cry out and lose his timing – he was still sensitive. Stiles’s dick slipped out. 

“Crap”

“Sorry, Stiles that was me, just go easy with little Scott will you?”

Stiles grabbed at Scott’s cock and jerked it violently a couple of times as a reminder of who was in charge, causing Scott to writhe on the bed again, pushing up with his hips and trying to escape Stiles's grasp - without really trying to escape the pleasure it was giving him. Stiles positioned himself once more. His dick was leaking pre-cum dramatically now, and it helped with the sliding in process, though it still took a couple of attempts. Scott moaned as he pushed in properly. Stiles could feel how close he was to the edge, and began to push more urgently.

“I’m gonna come, any second” Stiles warned.

“Dude, I….” Scott was panting, as Stiles rubbed his thumb over the head of Scott’s cock. 

Stiles suddenly exploded again, and with a couple of weak thrusts shot his load deep into Scott. He released Scott’s cock from his grasp, and then slowly pulled his own dick out of Scott’s ass, panting with exertion. His dick twitched feebly, cum dripping from the end. Scott was lying back, looking slightly stunned, while his hard cock moved reflexively. Stiles leant in, and suddenly bit into the side of Scott’s stomach. Scott drew in a breath with a sharp exclamation of pain as Stiles’s teeth connected. The bite mark stayed.

“It worked”. Stiles panted out.

Scott looked up at him. “I know, I feel awesome. Like, everything is so much clearer now. Though I have to say, dude, I thought when you leant in with your mouth open, you were going to finish me off…”

Stiles looked apprehensively at him. “You… err... you want me to do that?” 

“God, no dude. I was joking. That would be weird now. It is not like I need you to… do anything, now you have beta-ed me. I needed you before, and it had to be you before, but now... although, I do need to get off if you don’t mind?” Scott grasped his cock in his hand, and began jerking quickly, under Stiles’s gaze, with well-practiced ease. In considerably less than a minute he was making the same high pitched yelping as before, and a thin dribble of cum was emerging over his clenched fist. “God…”

Stiles lay down next to Scott on the bed, the bouncing motion of the mattress pushing them closer together. “You are sure it worked?”

“Totally sure. I feel – it is hard to describe. Complete? More than that. More than I have ever felt before. And the sex was good too.”

“Sure” Stiles deadpanned

“No, really. I mean, I am pretty sure I am not gay, and I don’t have any reference point to compare gay sex with, and I really wish the werewolf healing thing kicks in pretty soon or else I am not going to be walking for a while. Don’t take this the wrong way, but for pure pleasure I would chose sex with Allison, even without the whole love thing with her. But that doesn’t mean that wasn’t good, and I didn’t get off on it. That hand job of yours was fantastic, really. The thing you did with your thumb, where the hell did you learn that? And the ass-pounding was…well it was weird, to be honest, but kind of a good weird in a really painful, orgasm inducing way. You got me hard again after all. I don’t often cum so quickly after the first time.”

Stiles leant across to hug Scott, pulling him into his side. “Thanks dude.” He knew it couldn’t be true. Derek had rejected him so comprehensively. But Scott had not been so awful about it as Derek was. 

Scott returned the hug. Stiles could feel the stickiness of Scott’s cum rubbing off on his stomach, mingling with the last dribbles of his own ejaculation. Scott continued in a low tone; “Bro, I know that this was hard for you – I know you don’t think of me like that. But I can’t tell you how good it feels to be balanced.”

Stiles rolled onto his back and the two of them lay side by side for a moment. Stiles could feel a soft tickle as Scott’s leg brushed up against his own. Scott shifted a little uncomfortably, his ass contorting against Stiles’s thigh. Impulsively, Stiles threw his arm around Scott’s shoulders and pulled him in for a one armed embrace, while sighing out a breath. Clearing his throat, Stiles said “I have a theory that this will have to be repeated, perhaps on the lunar cycle? I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think the rebalancing can be a one off thing. So until you and Allison get back together fully, we might have to do this again every once in a while.”

Scott seemed entirely comfortable with that. “Sure thing. I’ll let you know. But otherwise we can hang out like normal, right?”

“Right”. Stiles knew that if Scott was getting back with Allison then hanging out like normal would mean hanging out a lot less than normal, and would involve last minute cancellations and changed plans. But he understood why Scott got like that, and he forgave him. Most of the time.

“Awesome”. Scott sat up suddenly. “I’m going to hit the shower, and then I am going to come back and whip your ass at Halo. And then you are going to buy me a burger and curly fries and onion rings.”

Stiles stared up at Scott. “Can I remind you which of us has the overpaid job here?”

“Dude, don’t be a cheap date. Your cum is dripping out of my ass, and I am going to be walking weird for a week. You owe me.”

Stiles aimed a half-hearted slap at Scott’s disappearing butt as he hauled himself off the bed and wandered in the direction of the bathroom. Stiles would not have believed it possible, but he felt a bit better. Derek had still left a gaping wound somewhere in Stiles’s chest, but Stiles knew with absolute clarity that Scott cared about him. Even if it was not romantic, even if, weirdly, sex with Scott was more a mechanical “just sex” than it was with Derek, it was sex with someone who meant something to him and who reciprocated. It was sex with someone who was polite enough not to criticise Stiles for how bad he was. Stiles stretched himself with something approaching a temporary contentment. As he heard the sound of the shower shutting off in the bathroom, Stiles pushed himself off the bed and went to get cleaned up.


	13. Twice - coincidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At this point Stiles had stamped his feet a couple of times on the floor to alert Scott to his imminent return. The alternative of knocking himself unconscious with a can of Coke to wipe out the embarrassingly puppy-love conversation from his mind had also occurred to Stiles.

It was two weeks after “The Great Rebalancing” (as Stiles called it in his mind – he had been researching European Renaissance history, and was tending to think in grandiose terms these days). Stiles had tried to avoid thinking about Derek. He drove past Derek’s loft on the way back from grocery shopping purely because the Jeep needed a run to help recharge its battery, and the extra couple of miles would do it good. He slowed down as he drove past because, hey, his dad was Sheriff and he needed to set a good example. He looked up at the windows with their blinds pulled down because… because… because he did, and he did not need a reason and it was a free country. And if he went grocery shopping three times in a week, it was purely because they kept running out of things, and not because he needed an excuse to drive anywhere.

Of Derek, there was not a sign. Not so much as a shadow of black leather disappearing round a corner, nor a lurking hint of stubble in the background. Not that Stiles wanted to see any of those things. He had been comprehensively rejected, clearly. But equally obviously he had some kind of masochistic streak that wanted to renew the pain and hurt from time to time. 

It was worst at night. Stiles hadn’t worn Derek’s T shirt again, but only because he knew if he did the smell of Derek would be hidden under his own smell. He had the T shirt wrapped tightly in a plastic bag at the back of his wardrobe, and try as he might he could not help taking it out before he went to bed, just for a few minutes, to hold. The dancing Derek stop action movie stayed on his hard drive, unviewed, but undeleted too. Stiles could not watch it, but it was somehow vital to know that it was there. 

During the day it was easier. Stiles had his dad to nag about eating right. He had research to pursue, on all sorts of things. He had carried on researching the Hale history, following a few loose ends and unexplored avenues in that “Tron biker” way that his mind had, although they mostly ended up as dead ends. He had struck up a somewhat weird email conversation with Alf of “Alf’s Antiques” in Douglas, to see if there was anything else relating to the “Lazy Susan”. And then there was Scott.

Scott was being more than usually attentive. They studied together to get Scott’s grades up, and now that Scott was a super-alpha, or whatever it was, it had become a lot easier. Scott was able to concentrate a lot better, at least when he was not thinking of Allison. They did lacrosse to increase Stiles’s chances on the team. They had movie marathons and gaming marathons. There were also random hugs: bromantic, back slapping hugs; quiet hugs; casual arm on shoulder hugs; and hugs seemingly just when Stiles was feeling at his most morose, and had needed to know that someone cared for him. Stiles had been worried at first that this was some kind of overcompensation on Scott’s part about the whole sex/rebalancing thing to prove how normal everything was (and everything was normal, from Stiles’s point of view), until he had been coming back to the family room from collecting more Cokes from the kitchen, and he overheard Scott on the phone to Allison.

“No, I think he is feeling a bit better. He was smiling a bit when I let him score a couple of goals at lacrosse…. I did too let him score… Well, maybe not the second one, but I was distracted because I was thinking about you… And he was smiling a bit this afternoon as well. If he is carries on doing OK I will try and see you tomorrow night. But only if he is staying more upbeat. I love you…. I love you more…. No, I love you more… No, I do…. No, you hang up first… no, you hang up first… I won’t hang up first, because I love you more…”

At this point Stiles had stamped his feet a couple of times on the floor to alert Scott to his imminent return. The alternative of knocking himself unconscious with a can of Coke to wipe out the embarrassingly puppy-love conversation from his mind had also occurred to Stiles, but it seemed unnecessarily violent; he kept it in reserve as an option, however. Scott gave a quick “Gotta go. Love you more” and ended the call. From somewhere in the randomness of Stile’s mind a verse suddenly floated to the surface 

‘From sport to sport they hurry me; to stifle my regret; and when they win a smile from me; they think that I forget.’

Stiles appreciated what Scott was doing, and what Allison was doing – not that she would be so supportive, Stiles assumed, if she knew the whole story. But Stiles should not have anything to regret. He shouldn’t be moping like a lovesick teenager. Even if he was a teenager, and he was moping, he shouldn’t be lovesick. It was not as if he had ever had any kind of chance with Derek Stupid Sourwolf Hale. Derek had rejected every attempt at friendship from Stiles. Derek was the one who insisted it was just sex. Derek was the one who had lain there, grimacing like he was reliving some kind of awful trauma, clearly intimating how bad the whole experience was for him. Derek was the one who had rushed out as soon as he could afterwards. Stiles could feel himself panicking again as he relived the experience. He took a couple of steadying breaths, and forced himself to smile a bit. It probably was not a terribly realistic smile, but he was damned if he was going to stand in the way of his best friend getting back with Allison. He pushed into the family room, and threw himself down on the couch next to Scott, ready to resume the Batman extravaganza. 

 

 

Stiles’s rictus grin of a smile seemed to be convincing enough, because the following morning Scott had said with a fake nonchalance:

“I might be hanging out with Allison tonight”

“Dude, that is great!” Stiles was going for extra enthusiasm, which he hoped was not too fake-sounding.

“Nothing certain. Just maybe. Do you want to hang out with us?”

God, no. A world of no. Third wheel to the little bubble of romantic bliss that was Scott and Allison sounded like hell. Could bubbles have wheels? And wouldn’t a bubble only need one wheel in the first place? And Stiles probably needed to take his Adderall today. 

“Dude, thanks, but I’m fine. I’ve got some research I need to be catching up on, anyway.”

Scott had looked carefully at him, but had said nothing more. Stiles kept catching Scott glancing his way throughout the morning (they were working on English again), and so Stiles kept trying to look cheerful. Though it was somewhat tiring. Scott also seemed to be a bit distracted. Stiles was not sure whether it was the prospect of Allison and the date tonight, or whether it was that Scott was bored with English, or whether it was the alpha unbalancing kicking in. The new moon was the following night, and Stiles had a theory about that. He would have to investigate after Scott’s date tonight, when he would be able to determine if it was just Allison induced agitation.

Stiles’s mask of cheerful indifference to Scott’s evening plans seemed to work, because Scott texted Allison and announced that they would be going out that evening, and was Stiles really sure he did not want to come? Stiles was really, really sure. And so, by early evening Stiles was on his own, not thinking of dark, muscular werewolves with designer stubble and glowering looks. He was trying to investigate his theories around the new moon and Hale alphas a bit more, which involved quite a few books, and lots of futile internet research, and also quite a lot of staring off into the middle distance.

It was dark out, and Stiles was slowly coming back to an awareness of his surroundings after a particularly long period of abstract moping. A small movement in the corner of his vision caused him to jump, and he turned suddenly. His body surged with adrenaline and he let out a sudden cry.

“Gaaah”

Derek was standing by Stiles’s window. Apparently they were back to windows as the main means of accessing Stiles’s bedroom. The door was just a one-time thing it seemed. 

“What… what?” Stiles was on the verge of hyperventilating. Two weeks of no Derek, and now he was just STANDING there. Like nothing had happened. As if Stiles had not been thinking about him every hour of every day for a whole fortnight. Granted, Derek could not know that (unless he could smell it on him? God, let him not be able to smell desperation and unrequited love. Or sort of unrequited love). 

Stiles looked again. Derek was not looking like Derek. The stubble was not stubble, so much as an unkempt beard. The leather jacket was there as usual, because of course it was, but the T shirt was looking dishevelled and frankly a little grubby. The painted on jeans were still painted on, but the trade mark glower was not visible. Derek was keeping his head down.

Stiles’s reacted defensively. He could not let Derek see what he was feeling, and it came out in a somewhat aggressive question.

“How many times have I told you about the stalker like behaviour and creeping up behind me? What on earth do you want?”

Derek looked up at that. There were dark circles under his eyes, like he had not been sleeping properly. Stiles wondered if there was some new, horrible, supernatural challenge that was keeping Derek occupied and which Derek needed research on. Because Stiles was obviously just a research app where Derek was concerned.

“The unbalancing thing. It seems to be on a lunar cycle, probably the new moon. I thought you might need to know.” Derek’s tone was hostile, or sort of hostile. Almost like he was trying to be hostile.

Stiles felt a little spike of exhilaration. This had been the theory he was working towards. The alpha of the wolf was dominant at the full moon, so the beta would be dominant at the other end of the cycle, and this would be when rebalancing was most important. It fitted with Scott being distracted today, too. 

“Yes, I thought that might be the cycle. It would fit – alpha and beta aspects of the wolf balance each other out.”

There was a pause. Derek looked back down at his feet. Stiles looked at Derek, until he caught sight of his reflection in the darkened window behind the alpha. Stiles’s look of longing was pathetic. Stiles blushed and looked back at his screen.

“Thanks for letting me know. It helps to have this stuff confirmed. I am looking into the background a bit more, and if I get anything I’ll text you or something.”

Stiles was trying to focus on his computer screen, but his vision had become a little blurred. He waited for the sound of the window closing behind Derek, so that he would be able to go and throw himself on his bed and wallow, but the sound never came. Instead there was something which sounded like a shuffling of feet.

“So, I wanted you to…” Derek began, his tone muffled.

Stiles’s jaw dropped, and he angrily brushed the tears from his eyes. He spun round in his chair.

“You wanted me to what? To humiliate myself again? To come running every time you clap your paws and decide to lower yourself to my pathetic level? To just turn off my humanity, go through the motions? Why don’t you ask someone else?”

Derek’s jaw muscles flexed, or Stiles thought that they flexed. Hard to tell with the beard in the way. 

“There isn’t anyone else.” Derek paused and then decided he needed to clarify. “I mean, I don’t have any friends. I mean, there are no friends I want to do this with. You ruled out wolves. So that leaves you.”

Stiles reacted to that. “So I am supposed to just roll over, or roll you over, and do my duty, is that it? It doesn’t matter what I feel, or…”

Stiles had much more to say in this vein, but Derek interrupted with a return of that weird pseudo hostility and a half attempt at a glower. In a monotone, but at a forceful volume, Derek said

“It’s just sex, Stiles”.

Stiles snapped. It might be just sex to Derek. It meant more to Stiles. He wanted it to mean more, at any rate. He had wanted his first time to be romantic, with someone he loved and who loved him back. Soft kisses, and soppy music on the iPod, and whispered honesty and knowing someone completely, and trust, and… and not this. Bad sex and one sided love and the whole sordid nature of it. He could feel the anger rising in him, and he was blinking back tears. Angry tears. They must be angry tears. Anything else would be pathetic.

Derek was looking back at his shoes. His shoulders were hunched forward beneath his jacket. Stiles hated him. He hated himself. 

“Strip. Get on the bed”.

They were the last words Stiles said to Derek. Derek stripped himself down with the same fanatical folding and tidying he had last time. He put his clothes on the chest of drawers near the window rather than the set near the door, but otherwise the procedure was the same. Derek shuffled over to the bed, refusing to look at Stiles. Stiles did not want to look at him. Well, he did. But he wanted to look at him and see something in his eyes that was not repugnance, or despairing resignation at the necessity of having to be in Stiles’s company. If Stiles was not going to get love, he at least wanted some kind of affection. And he did not even get eye contact.

Stiles pulled off his T shirt and threw it over the back of his chair. He stood staring down at Derek, who was lying on his back, his eyes closed. Derek was hard, his erection resting against his abs and seeming already be leaking a little precum. Was the fact that he could will himself hard without there being any attraction to Stiles an alpha versus beta thing? Or a werewolf thing? Stiles resolved to ask Scott, tactfully, at some point. Stiles watched as a little of the liquid leaked onto Derek’s stomach, watched the slight glistening in the light coming from his laptop screen, and wondered what it would be like to lick Derek’s abs clean. To put his mouth over Derek’s mouth, to tug at Derek’s lower lip with his teeth, gently running his hands through Derek’s hair, while they just lay together. To kiss Derek, to… to… to stop being a child and dreaming the impossible. To GROW UP, and to recognise this for what it was. Nothing. At least, nothing to Derek. 

Stiles could feel a ball of tension welling up inside his throat at this point. He needed to get this over with or… he just needed to get this over with. He kicked off his shoes, and pulled off his socks, before unbuckling his belt. The quiet clanking of his buckle seemed to alert Derek to something – his eyes opened, at any rate, and he glanced covertly at Stiles across the room. Seeing Stiles looking at him, Derek shut his eyes again quickly. Stiles could see the shudder run through Derek as he struggled to control himself – if he was trying to prevent the dislike from showing, it wasn’t working. 

Stiles pulled off his jeans and boxers and tossed them over the back of the chair. He knelt by the bed, rummaging around for the lube he knew was there somewhere. Derek lay still, his mouth moving slightly as if he were repeating some mantra to himself. 

Stiles poured lube into the palm of his hand, and coated his dick liberally. He was achingly hard. He had not had the inclination to jerk off for several days. He had not had the inclination to do anything for several days, and only Scott’s constant presence and questioning and suggesting had been getting him out of bed at all. Stiles coated two fingers, and started to work around Derek’s hole – carelessly.

After a minute or so Stiles began slipping his two fingers into Derek. Immediately there was tension. Stiles had not noticed it so much the first time, because he had had no frame of reference, but since the night with Scott, he knew that it did not have to be like this. He pushed on regardless, trying to ignore Derek’s face with its resolutely closed eyes. Trying to ignore Derek’s cock as it lay rigid against the hard contours of Derek’s stomach. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t stare down at Derek like this.

Stiles pulled his fingers out. Derek’s eyes flew open at the abruptness of the action, but Stiles ignored him. He climbed up onto the bed beside the alpha, and pushed Derek onto his side – so that Derek was facing towards the window. Stiles roughly lifted Derek’s right leg to open his ass, and positioned himself behind him. Derek was breathing rather strenuously now, and Stiles slowly eased his dick between Derek’s ass cheeks. The muscles of Derek’s butt twitched convulsively, and Stiles felt the firm flesh pressing his dick, almost causing him to cum right there. He pushed Derek’s leg a little higher and then worked his dick into Derek’s hole.

The tightness was still there, the warmth too, and Stiles almost let out a cry of pleasure at the sensation. He bit back on his lower lip to keep the sound in, and slowly began to push in. Derek gave a grunt as he reached the limit of his thrust – had he hit the prostate? Was this where the prostate was? Stiles had no clue. He would have to extend his web researches. He thrust a couple more times at the same spot, seemingly missing once (at least, there was no reaction) but then eliciting a gasp the second time.

Stiles was not sure what he was supposed to be doing to Derek, and he was not going to ask. He put his right arm over the taut muscles of Derek’s side, feeling his way down the ridges of muscles of Derek’s stomach, until he grabbed the hotness of Derek’s cock. Stiles held on, as he thrust again – the thrusting action seemed to push Derek’s cock into his hand, and there was a small shudder along Derek’s torso in response. Stiles thrust two or three more times, not really sure whether he was supposed to concentrate on Derek’s prostate, or Derek’s cock, or what. He stared at the tattoo on Derek’s back, wanting to press his lips against it but knowing for certain that such an action would only lead to rejection and humiliation and further pain for him.

Derek’s body suddenly stiffened, and with a strangled gasp, half choked off, he came. Stiles could feel a thrumming sensation in Derek’s cock as each pulse released another load of cum into Stiles’s hand, and onto Derek’s chest. Stiles had been oblivious to this the last time – back then, Derek’s orgasm had taken him completely by surprise. Now he was feeling the power behind it, the raw sexual, animal energy; it spurred him to thrust harder, loosening his grip on Derek’s cock somewhat as he pushed progressively faster. He tried to push deeper too, but that seemed to be physically beyond him. It could not have been more than half a minute after Derek had subsided into passive silence that Stiles came. A wave of ecstasy rolled over him, and he felt himself spilling deep inside Derek. Stiles moaned – a deep, guttural moan of pleasure and longing, and a second and less intense wave of ecstasy took hold. Stiles lay weakly back on the mattress. He wanted, more than anything, to reach forward and wrap his arms around Derek, to hold onto him, to say something, anything that would elicit an emotional response from him. As Stiles tentatively lifted his hand, Derek seemed to slump forwards a little, shoulders hunched. He almost seemed to be shrinking in on himself – or, Stiles thought, shrinking away from Stiles.

“Thank you”

Derek’s voice seemed a bland, indifferent, monotone. Stiles was in no position to hear the slight quaver behind it.

Stiles knew he would not be able to hold himself together long enough for Derek to leave. He pulled out of Derek, grabbed at his boxer shorts as he stalked past his desk chair, and strode determinedly into the bathroom down the hall. He turned the shower on full blast, and stepped in.

Under the cover of the sound of the water cascading down, Stiles burst into tears.


	14. Super alpha requires super Stiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles turned and left as rapidly as he could, before his scent or his heart beat or, you know, his suddenly bursting into hysterical tears could give him away.

Stiles did not hear from Scott the following morning, which was fine with Stiles. Stiles stayed in bed, his head under his pillow, with another pillow on top to block out the world. The attempts to rebuild a positive outlook over the previous two weeks had melted away in five minutes the night before. Stiles felt forsaken. Love was simply something that happened to other people. Stiles was clearly condemned to spend a lifetime of loneliness. A useful source of information. A handy mind to tap in a crisis. But clearly not someone anyone would want to show affection for.

Stiles was just contemplating whether he should download some Indigo Girls tunes from the web to fuel the general sense of melancholy that was washing over him, when The Crystal Fighters blared out from his phone. Without removing the pillows from on top of his head he reached out a hand until connecting with his Samsung, pulling the phone into the nest he had formed for himself. A text from Scott.

“Stile where are U? Crisis”

Stiles stared at the phone for a while. Scott only ever needed him in a crisis. Otherwise Stiles was an irrelevance. A nuisance. A backup plan if Allison was not around. At the back of his mind a small voice whispered that this was not true, that Scott had been giving up the last couple of weeks to help Stiles. Stiles did not want to hear that particular voice right now. He wanted to feel alone, forsaken, never to be loved by anyone again. Stiles was wallowing for goodness sake. Positive thoughts were not needed.

The voice persisted, until Stiles was forced to acknowledge that it had a point. Scott had been there for him the past couple of weeks. In fact, Scott had been pretty awesome for the past couple of weeks, and had clearly sacrificed a lot to be there for Stiles. Stiles knew, or thought he knew, that Scott and Allison had something fairly epic going on. Stiles appreciated that Scott giving him priority over Allison meant something. What it probably meant was that Stiles was being more pathetic than normal, but Stiles did not want to dwell on that.

Stiles’s brain did one of its random shifts, and he wondered what his life would be like without Scott. He honestly could not imagine it. He would almost certainly never have made it through the time after his mother’s death if Scott had not been around. And there had been countless times subsequently when Scott had anchored Stiles to reality. A reality he would probably have let go of otherwise. Life without a best friend like Scott would be… Stiles suddenly thought that without Scott’s presence, he probably would not still be around. Scott was still looking out for him, in spite of the fact that Stiles had caused Scott to be bitten and become a werewolf. Scott understood Stiles, in a way his father never could quite manage. Stiles’s dad was awesome, but he didn’t get Stiles in the way Scott did. Scott understood Stiles in a way Lydia had never tried to manage. In a way that Derek… Stiles stopped thinking along those lines. But there was another mental twinge and a shift of direction in the path his thought process was taking. Stiles could not imagine what life would be like without Scott there, but Derek did not have a Scott equivalent. Derek was resolutely alone. Far more so than Stiles. Derek had no family, bar Peter, who barely counted. He had no friends that Stiles knew of. His pack either rejected him or just disappeared. Derek had no one. 

For the first time since The Great Rebalancing, Stiles felt a twinge of pity for Derek.

Stiles’s phone rang out again.

“Dude? U there?”

Stiles tapped out a lethargic “Wassup?”

Within a minute (which was fast for Scott’s texting) he had a reply.

“Pack meeting. Mine. ASAP”

Stiles raised an eyebrow at the concept of a “pack meeting”. The pack, after all, consisted of two people, or one werewolf and one person. But Scott had given him something to focus on, a sense of purpose. Stiles pushed the pillows off of his head, and hauled himself out of bed.

 

It took Stiles about an hour to get over to Scott’s house. He had needed food. He had needed to shower, thoroughly, using strong smelling shower gel to eradicate any scent from… from anything that might get Scott asking questions that Stiles was really not ready to answer. Stiles let himself in with his key and made his way up to Scott’s bedroom.

Scott was agitated, and Stiles noted that this confirmed his suspicions about the new moon lunar cycle and the need for beta forces. But Scott’s agitation was still under control. 

“Dude, it took you forever.”

“Sorry.” Stile was not going to offer too detailed an explanation. “Things I had to do”.

“You smell lemony. It’s nice”. Scott’s randomness was back, though as long as Stiles’s smell was lemony rather than Dereky it was all good.

Scott was sniffing a little too enthusiastically as he reached over to Stiles for a one handed and somewhat random hug. Stiles put a hand out to pat Scott’s hair.

“Down boy. What is with the whole urgent summoning text messages?”

Scott looked serious suddenly. There was the slight crinkle between his eyebrows that characterised his “serious face.” It also characterised his “orgasm” face, and actually that was quite a lot of information to have about one’s best friend.

“There is a rogue omega out on the Beacon Hills Preserve. Allison told me last night.” There was a brief pause to allow Scott to go all dewy eyed for a moment. “She and her father can’t do anything about it because… well you know why they can’t now. And I don’t want Allison in harm’s way.” Stiles reflected on Allison’s ability to shoot passing werewolves with her eyes closed, and was tempted to give a snort of disagreement. “So we are going to have to sort the problem out.”

Stiles felt a twitch of interest. Something to focus on. Maybe to research. “So we are going to kill…”

Scott looked horrified. “No. Stiles. What is it with you and wanting to kill things? Derek? Jackson? My tortoise? Seriously, you need to dial back on the war gaming. I want to reason with him. Or her. Get them to leave the territory peacefully. See if there is anything I can do to help them.”

Stiles slapped his alpha on the back “I was joking, dude”. Scott did not look entirely convinced, and perhaps the whole tortoise and firework incident still rankled. It was also certainly true that Scott’s first instinct was always non-violent. Looking for a way to help the thing that was wrecking their lives. He seemed naturally, or supernaturally, compassionate.

Stiles’s brain clicked, and he remembered Derek telling him, before… before everything, that his mother’s traits as an alpha had been compassion and empathy. And if her alpha traits had passed to Laura, they would have passed to Peter – latent, perhaps, but they would have been there. And so from Peter to Scott. So Scott was a Hale alpha, but also had some of Derek’s mother’s werewolf genes kicking around. He would have to research this genetic stuff further. 

Pulling his mind back to the present, Stiles looked over at Scott. Scott was looking dewy eyed again, and Stiles felt that there was going to be a limit to how much of this he could endure. Reconciling himself to a life of solitude was one thing. Having love’s young dream on permanent display in close proximity was quite another.

“So, dude, do you have a plan. Or do you need me to come up with a plan?”

“Your plans always end up with me getting beaten up, or put in detention, or having restraining orders placed on me.”

“So you have a plan?”

Scott looked at Stiles with a drawn out sense of suffering on his face. “No, dude, that is what you are here for. Your plans normally suck, but you know I need you to come up with the idea.”

Stiles thought for a moment. “You just want to talk to this omega, right?”

“Right. Just talking. No killing. And no fireworks either.”

Jeez, you try and launch a tortoise into space ONE TIME and are never allowed to forget it. “OK. So we go back to the tried and tested. Mountain ash. Encircle the omega. You open diplomatic relations with them confined by the ash. You mess it up. I swoop in and save the day with a Molotov cocktail.”

Scott head rolled at Stiles, with a pointed glare.

“Yeah, yeah. No Molotov cocktail. I’ll get the mountain ash from home, and meet you here in half an hour. I am assuming you can track down the omega’s scent?”

“Sure.” Scott suddenly looked shifty. “I’ll just call Derek and let him know what we are doing. I mean, the preserve is my territory, but the omega may wander onto Derek’s turf, so…”

“Whatever.” Stiles turned and left as rapidly as he could, before his scent or his heart beat or, you know, his suddenly bursting into hysterical tears could give him away.

 

 

It took a while to track down the omega. Scott was definitely feeling unbalanced, though he did not say so to Stiles. Stiles had, of course, some inside knowledge about the lunar cycle, and he would have to talk to Scott about this at some point. The consequence was that they spent quite a long time tracking what turned out to be a Pomeranian and its owner out for a walk. Dusk was falling by the time Scott got onto the right scent.

The omega appeared to be holed up in an old bird-watchers’ blind, some way out from the main car park for the preserve. Stiles crept carefully forwards, clutching his mountain ash bag, and slowly began to encircle the hut. Walking backwards carefully, trying not to make too much noise, he completed the boundary – willing the barrier to work. He beckoned Scott over to try it, and when Scott could not cross the line raised his hands triumphantly. 

“Yes, Stiles the Silent scores again. I am awesome, dude.”

“Shut up”, Scott whispered urgently.

“Dude, what are you talking about. We want the omega out, don’t we? Hey, Mr Omega. Or Ms Omega. Time to come out and chat…”

There was a growl from the blind, and a run-down looking man emerged. On seeing Stiles and Scott he made a sudden rush in the other direction, only to come up against the impenetrable barrier that the mountain ash presented. With a snarl he transformed and turned to face the two of them.

“Let me go”

Scott looked at him. “We just want to talk. You are on my territory, and you have been causing problems. I want to see if we can resolve them.”

“Your territory?” The werewolf looked at Scott with derision. “You are just a kid. I can practically smell the high school on you. If you are all there is then maybe I’ll just claim the territory for myself.”

Scott just looked across the ash barrier with a placid expression. Stiles, however, adopted his normal snarky demeanour. “Scott is an alpha, and probably the most powerful alpha you are ever going to meet. And he is not all there is; he has a particularly awesome pack thank you very much.” Stiles jabbed a finger at the omega for emphasis. Sadly, his arm crossed the ash barrier as he did so, and the omega grabbed his outstretched hand and pulled him over the barrier and then away from the edge of the circle.

“Awesome pack you have”. The voice was dripping with sarcasm, and Stiles could smell the omega’s sweat as he was pulled into a tight headlock against the werewolf’s body. “Not even a wolf. I will be doing us all a favour if I finish him off now.”

Stiles was too far from the ash circle to break it, and Scott was trapped on the other side. Stiles wriggled and flailed out with his fists, but could not break the omega’s hold on him. He could not see Scott, but he heard him say very quietly

“Put him down”

The omega laughed mirthlessly. There was a moment of silence. And then…

Scott – it can only have been Scott – let out an alpha roar that seemed to shake the air. The hairs on Stiles’s arms stood up with the electric force of it. Instantly the omega dropped Stiles, morphed back into human form, and cowered as far away from Scott as he could. Stiles was reminded of Derek and Isaac that night in the police station, but this was far more powerful than that. The omega was not part of Scott’s pack. He was safe from Scott. And yet Scott’s alpha powers were enough to reduce the omega to a quivering wreck. 

Stiles stepped quickly over the ash barrier, dusted himself off, and from somewhere just behind Scott shouted out “most powerful alpha you will ever meet, douchebag.”

Scott looked across at the omega. 

“Here is what will happen. You will leave tonight. I’d head south if I were you, there is another werewolf controlling the territory to the north, and you really do not want to run into him. Keep going due south for three days. After that, you do what you want. But if I come across your scent again in my territory, or if I find your scent near any more human “accidents”, I will track you down. And believe me when I say that will not end well for you. 

The omega nodded weakly.

Scott turned to Stiles. “You can break the barrier now”

Stiles gave Scott a mulish look. “Maybe we should just leave him here”. His neck hurt from where the omega had grabbed it. “He might survive a while on bunnies and so on”.

Scott gave him a look again, and Stiles sighed and moved forward. The omega was still cowering on the fire side of the circle. Stiles broke through the ash with his foot, and glared pointedly at the omega, before heading back to the car park with Scott.

 

 

On the ride back to Scott’s house Stiles mind was whirring. This was the first demonstration, practical demonstration, of Scott’s new found alpha balance, and it was pretty awesome. To control an omega like that, in that situation was spectacular. Stiles wondered about the full potential of his friend. Scott was strangely quiet, however.Back in Scott’s room, the reason for the silence was apparent. Stiles lounged on Scott’s bed, but Scott continued to fidget about the room, before suddenly blurting out “the balance has gone, Stiles, and it is far worse than before.”

“Relax bro. I have a theory that this is because of the lunar cycle. The beta balance thing works off of the new moon, just like the alpha wolf comes around on the full moon – it is sort of a mini balance across the lunar cycle. Which means that you are unbalanced right now.”

Scott did not appear reconciled. “But I feel more unbalanced than I have ever done.” There was a brief pause, and then Scott added in a nervous tone “Is it because Allison and I… we… well, last night, things sort of speeded up a bit.” Scott was blushing furiously “we are properly back together.”

Stiles pushed down a twinge of jealousy at his friend’s obvious happiness, and stood up to give him a hug. “Scott, dude, that is fantastic news. I could not be happier. And I don’t see why that would make things worse.” He paused. “Are you saying that Allison could not rebalance you at all? Did you try to have her rebalance you?”

Scott looked a little abashed and was still blushing. His prudish streak was quite remarkable, particularly considering that Stiles had intimate knowledge of what Scott's orgasm face looked like. And what quite a few other things looked like, come to think of it. Scott muttered on. “We tried a bit. I mean, she has always really taken the lead. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing. And then this evening the balance has become far worse.”

Stiles was thinking “It is nothing to do with Allison, I'm sure. Although I can’t understand why she did not rebalance you.”

Scott started wandering aimlessly around the room again. “Maybe it is because I already took you as my alpha for this? Or maybe it is because Allison still feels contrite over everything that happened?”

Stiles nodded thoughtfully, then gasped as the full impact of Scott’s words hit... Scott had been doing great with his English of late, but there was no way that Scott’s vocabulary included the word contrite, not in its proper context. Which could only mean…

“Holy shit, you TOLD her?”

Scott looked bemused. “Of course I told her. I told her right from the start. Why wouldn’t I tell her?”

Stiles’s brain whirled. “But, doesn’t she – I mean – what does she feel about the whole” he gestured demonstratively between the two of them. “I mean, did you tell her everything? Absolutely everything?”

Scott shrugged. “Of course. And she is cool. I mean, I am sure she would prefer it if I did not have to go through it, but she knows what you mean to me and I think she is relieved that it is you rather than anyone else. She knows you won’t take advantage or anything, and you do it because, well because you love me. But not like that.” Scott’s face flushed a little, and he started roaming around again.

Stiles was still struggling with this. “When you say everything, do you mean EVERYTHING everything?”

“Everything. The night after you – rebalanced me, I guess? I went over and explained what you had told me about the Hale alphas. She could see I was better, stronger, far more in control. And then I explained what we had done. She asked what I felt, and I said that the physical part of the sex was great if a bit sore, and that I loved you, but that it was obviously different from what I had with her. It’s hard to explain, but she seemed to understand. And she knows I would never look at anyone other than her, except you.”

Stiles was astounded.

Scott continued to roam “But if it is not Allison, why do I feel so bad right now? This is nothing like what I had before”.

Stiles pulled his mental faculties together. He was still struggling with the notion that Allison knew all, and had always known all. “Well, you are on the new moon lunar cycle. And I think it feels worse because you just became super alpha. That control tonight was just out of this world. And so perhaps the scales have tilted too far to the alpha side now, and you need to rebalance the beta a little more forcefully.”

Scott beamed at him, then bent kicked off his sneakers and bent to take off his socks. “There is lube under the bed” he said, happily.

“Hold on there, puppy.” Stiles was thinking this through. “I run the show here, and I did not bargain for having to do this full time. I assumed that you and Allison were going to take over the alpha-beta balancing.”

Scott stood in front of Stiles, barefoot. “But it doesn’t work. And I don’t think I want it to work. We think” (Stiles noticed the change of pronoun) “that our relationship will be a lot better as equals. To have Allison dominate, as a hunter, would be potentially dangerous. And I want it to be you if it is not Allison. And Allison wants it to be you too.” Scott looked worried “I mean, you would be OK with it? It wasn’t too weird or anything? And you enjoyed the sex last time? I mean I know I am not very good at it but…”

Stiles looked appraisingly at him. “It wasn’t weird for me, but I seriously don’t want to change our friendship over this. We have to compartmentalise the situation”. Scott nodded enthusiastically. Stiles was pretty sure Scott had no idea what he was talking about. “And I have to find a way of rebalancing more forcefully.”

Scott waited patiently, nervously tucking his long sleeved T shirt into the back of his jeans. The motion gave Stiles an idea. Scott had always been a little vain about his butt. Allison had complimented it once, and ever since then he had a habit of tucking in his shirts at the back, and wearing tighter jeans, to show it off. There might be a way of creating a more forceful balance.

“OK cub. You can’t order me to stop, because you can’t order me to do anything, but we need a word you can use if things become too weird or uncomfortable. A safety word.”

Scott nodded enthusiastically. “Allison and I use tapio…” 

Stiles cut him off hurriedly. “I do not want to know.” He paused. “OK, if things get too weird, say Braveheart. If you feel you are becoming less balanced, same thing. Understand?”

Scott nodded. Stiles sat back down on the bed. Scott looked eagerly towards him, twitching slightly with repressed energy. 

“OK puppy. Strip down for me.”

It was absurd how rapidly Scott tore off his clothes. The shirts were flung in the direction of the bathroom door. Jeans and boxers came off with one fluid motion, and wrapped themselves around the desk chair. Scott was already hard – that was new. It had taken a little while last time. Perhaps it was something to do with the alpha force? Stiles made a mental note to research further if he could.

“Over here, puppy.” Scott stood in front of Stiles. “Lay down across my knees”. Scott looked a little puzzled, but laid across Stiles’s lap.

“No, a bit more forwards, and closer to me. Left a little. Up a bit more.” There was a minute of wriggling and adjusting until Stiles was sure things were right. He could feel the hard heat of Scott’s cock pressing against his thighs through the denim of his jeans. Scott had his head turned slightly to look up at Stiles. Stiles stroked his left hand gently against Scott’s face, and brought his right hand up to slowly caress the smooth mounds of Scott’s ass. 

“So puppy” Stiles gently traced the line of Scott’s jaw with his left index finger “you think my plans suck, do you?” Without warning he brought his right hand down with a sharp smack on Scott’s ass. There was a satisfying retort as his palm connected, and Scott’s buttocks rippled with the impact. It was weirdly erotic. Stiles had never really bothered with this sort of porn before, but he was starting to see the appeal.

Scott looked up at him. “Stiles, what the hell?”

“Quiet puppy.” Stiles was beginning to enjoy this. His dick was quietly hardening beneath his jeans. “You think my plans suck, and you dared to question Stiles the Silent, Grand Wizard and Master of Mountain Ash”. A second resounding slap accompanied these comments, and again Stiles noted the way Scott’s buttocks trembled under the impact. Perhaps Stiles was some kind of fetishist after all? His fantasies had always been so vanilla hitherto. Aside from focusing on werewolves of course. Or on one werewolf. 

Scott moaned out a rather obscene sound, accompanied by a pleading “Stiles….”. Stiles noted with approval that the red flush where his palm had hit was lingering against the smooth skin of Scott's ass cheeks.

“You...do…not…question…Stiles…the…Silent”. Each word was accompanied by a slap. Scott writhed beneath him, the action generating some friction between his cock and Stiles’s thighs. Something Stiles had foreseen, because of course Stiles the Silent could predict such things. Scott was moaning again, though whether from the treatment he was receiving, or from the frotting he was doing was not immediately clear.

Stiles gently stroked his index finger along Scott’s jaw again, and then said “bad puppies need to be punished. It is how they learn.” Scott nodded cautiously. “So, cub, get up and strip me down. And then we will consider your punishment.”

Scott stood slowly. He cock bobbed slightly towards his stomach, and Stiles could see the red flush on his ass cheeks was not fading. Stiles noted the wetness glistening at the tip of Scott’s cock, and glanced down at his jeans. A small wet stain was visible on the denim of his left leg. He looked at it, then up at Scott, then back at his jeans in a pointed fashion. 

Scott gulped. “Sorry Stiles. I lost control”.

Stiles looked back at Scott. “I’m waiting…”

Scott rushed forwards and pulled up at Stiles’s shirt. He was enthusiastic, but hardly well coordinated, and Stiles repressed a sigh as Scott struggled to pull the shirt up over his head. Stiles lay back on the bed, while Scott pulled off Stiles’s shoes and started to tug at his jeans. Finally Stiles’s boxers joined the untidy heap on the floor. Stiles pushed himself back into a sitting position, the muscles of his arms tensing beneath his pale skin. Scott seemed to notice, as he stood in front of Stiles, panting slightly. Certainly his eyes flickered in that direction.

“OK puppy. Assume the position.”

Scott lay back across Stiles, and Stile adjusted him lightly so that Scott’s cock rested between Stiles’s thighs. The warmth of it was something of a surprise to him – a heat seemed to be coming off of Scott, and Scott seemed to be squirming in an attempt to generate more pressure against himself. Stiles found the wriggling quite stimulating. His own cock was already fully erect, brushing gently against the side of Scott’s torso. 

“I think you need some discipline, puppy. Looking at my jeans you need housetraining at least, and you need to learn you should not bark disagreement at Stiles.”

Scott continued squirming. Stiles suddenly let off a volley of smacks, causing Scott’s buttocks to quiver back and forth and leading Scott to push harder against Stiles as he writhed in an ineffective attempt to evade the rain of blows. Stiles paused. His hand was sore aside from anything else. As he rested it on Scott’s ass, Scott began pushing into him with more vehemence, and his high pitched yipping sound began to gain in volume. All of a sudden Scott made a couple of ragged thrusting movements. Stiles pulled his legs closer together, instinctively, and was rewarded with a warm, wet sensation as Scott came between his legs.

Stiles stroked at Scott’s hair with his left hand. “Better puppy?”

Scott lay there for a moment, the last pulses of his orgasm pushing cum out between Stiles’s thighs. Slowly he pushed himself backwards, so that he was now kneeling on the floor.

“That was great, Stiles.”

“Balanced?”

“Getting there”.

Stiles looked concerned. “Scott, you should have been balanced by that, I would have hoped. Are you not properly balanced yet? How far…”

Stiles stopped abruptly, as Scott bent forward and put his lips around Stiles’s hard dick. Stiles stared. His first blow job. He almost came at the very thought.

Scott slowly took Stiles’s length into his mouth, moving his tongue around the tip of Stile’s dick in a way that was extraordinarily arousing. Stiles moaned out, as Scott mumbled (his mouth still around Stiles) “I need you to mark me I think.”

Stiles was not in a mood to pay attention to mere words, as Scott moved up and down in a slow motion, the frantic activity of his tongue belying the seemingly calm of his head movements. Stiles was gasping now. Scott’s head was working rhythmically, and then with a new kind of swirling motion, Scott’s tongue pulled Stiles to the brink. A slurping sound from Scott and Stiles tumbled over into bliss, with cum pumping into Scott’s mouth. Stiles gave out a stifled cry of pure pleasure, and then collapsed back onto Scott’s bed.

Scott crawled up beside him, swallowing as he did, and nestled his head into Stiles’s shoulder.

“I needed to have you mark me, that was all. Balance restored. You were right, as always”.

Stiles nodded vaguely. He wanted to revel in the afterglow of what had just happened. But his inquiring mind would not let him rest too long. 

“Dude, where did you learn to do that? That was, just, just, awesome.”

Scott lifted his head to look at Stiles. “Where do you think? I have slept with precisely two people in my life. But I know what I like, and I figured that you might like the same sort of thing, so…”

Stiles patted Scott’s hair again. “I must remember to thank Allison”.

Scott smacked at his shoulder. “Don’t you dare.” He paused, then leaned across to pull Stiles into a hug. “Thanks for this dude. You are the best. And you always know what I need.”

Stiles grinned at him happily. “You want me to find some lotion for your pretty bubble butt?”

Scott sighed back. “Dude, a world of yes…. Wait, what do you mean by ‘bubble butt’?”


	15. There are three people in this relationship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God, that was totally a crossbow she had hidden behind her back wasn’t it? A dinky little handbag sized crossbow, ideally suited for shooting your boyfriend’s best friend with if your boyfriend’s best friend happened to be sleeping with your boyfriend – however altruistic and noble your boyfriend’s best friend’s motives might be.

It was three days after the incident with the omega, and Stiles was spending the evening at home researching werewolf genetics. Or perhaps starting out of the darkened window. But absolutely not moping. Stiles was clear on that point. To be moping would be pathetic. Scott had been over that afternoon, and had at least checked in on Stiles every day, but tonight he was working at Deaton’s. 

Stiles had just resolved to go to the store to get some shoelaces, because you could never have too many shoelaces, and if he was going to the store he might as well give the jeep a bit of a run because that was good for the battery, and if he happened to drive past Derek’s building then that was just one of those weird coincidences that happened. He was hunting for his keys when the doorbell rang. Stile sighed and jogged down stairs. It would be someone looking for his dad, he was sure. Scott had a key. Derek used the window, not that Derek would ever want to see him, because why would he? And anyone else who was looking for Stiles would text.

It was not someone looking for his dad. At least, he did not think that was who she was after. Standing in the doorway was Allison.

“Hello Stiles”.

There was a flat, rather sinister tone to her voice.

“Al..Allison. Hi. Ummm. How are you? What are you doing here?”

Stiles noted with some concern that Allison appeared to be hiding something behind her back.

“I thought it might be a good idea if we had a little talk.”

Stiles could not agree. Allison’s face had that look of steely determination that normally ended with werewolves, or people, being punctured by crossbow bolts, and Stiles so did not want to be punctured by a crossbow bolt. He really did not like pain. And, oh my God, that was totally a crossbow she had hidden behind her back wasn’t it? A dinky little handbag sized crossbow, ideally suited for shooting your boyfriend’s best friend with if your boyfriend’s best friend happened to be sleeping with your boyfriend – however altruistic and noble your boyfriend’s best friend’s motives might be.

“And I brought something to encourage you to talk”

Stile gulped, and closed his eyes. A crossbow for sure. He was going to be stuck full of crossbow bolts where he stood.

Allison started to laugh. But not in a manic evil super villain type of a way. Stiles opened an eye tentatively. Allison was bending over with laughter.

“Stiles, your face… Scott said you were worried, but I didn’t think…. What did you think I was going to do?” Allison pulled out the bottle of wine from behind her back. “I know you two generally go for the hard stuff, but I thought wine would do just as well for a civilised chat about our… situation.”

Stiles slumped weakly against the door. “A civilised chat?”

“No crossbows, I promise.” Allison pushed past Stiles, and made her way upstairs. “Bring glasses”, she shouted over her shoulder.

 

They were sitting side by side on the floor, leaning against Stiles’s bed. Allison had insisted they each needed to down at least a glass of wine before talking. Stiles was ploughing his way through his second with a somewhat desperate urgency. He had never really liked wine. Alcohol in its many forms, yes, but wine was never really his thing. But if ever there was a moment for drinking, this seemed to be it.

“So”. Allison was sipping her second glass. “I thought we should talk about our little ménage a trois”.

Stiles almost choked on the wine. Only a desperate need to absorb as much alcohol as he could stopped him.

“Stiles, I am not mad. And I always knew there were going to be three in this relationship, even if you and Scott hadn’t… I mean, right from the start I have always known that you and Scott have had a special bond.”

Stiles was coughing slightly, as some of the wine had gone down the wrong way. Allison smiled, and reached over to refill his glass.

“And I know that what you are doing is for the right reasons. And Scott is so much better since you started…” Allison paused, searching for a word.

Stiles found his voice at last. “We tend to use ‘rebalancing’”.

“Rebalancing. Right.” Allison seemed lost in thought. “I don’t think Scott is gay, you know? I am not saying he doesn’t enjoy the, umm, rebalancing. The physical side, I mean. But I don’t think it is him.”

Stiles nodded. “I am, you know? Gay. And, oh my God you are the first person I have ever said that to. I haven’t even told Scott or my dad yet. Oh my God. The first person I tell it to…”

“…Is the girlfriend of the guy you are sleeping with?” Allison leant across and gently hugged Stiles. “Don’t worry. I am not going to say anything. Although I don’t think Scott is going to be shocked if you tell him. And honestly, I don’t think your dad will be surprised either.” 

Stiles was lost in thought. Mechanically he drained his glass. Allison refilled it, then her own. 

“So, I wanted to ask a few things. Just to know where we are.” Allison was attempting to inject a business like tone into the conversation. “I mean I don’t want all the details. Or if I do I will ask Scott.” She paused. “Incidentally, what was with the spanking last time? The poor boy could barely sit down.”

Stiles squirmed a little uncomfortably. “It was necessary. And not something I planned. Scott had become this super-alpha when we were dealing with a rogue omega. Did he tell you?” Allison nodded. “Well, it seemed to tilt the balance. And so I had to rebalance him more forcefully. Play the role of alpha to his beta more clearly, I guess.”

“And Scott is always so vain about his butt” Allison interjected.

“Exactly. And that is totally your fault. You said he had a nice butt once and ever since… So a quick bit of spanking seemed in order. And never mind Scott, my hand was sore for a day afterwards. Scott may have a nice soft bubble butt, but I had to hit him hard.”

“He does have a nice butt doesn’t he” Allison mused, dreamily.

“This is weird. We are bonding over your boyfriend’s butt.” They both broke into somewhat hysterical giggles.

“So, do you see him as your boyfriend? I mean, you guys have never kissed – properly kissed I mean – aside from that time when you were eleven.”

“My God, is nothing sacred? No, we do not kiss and that thing when we were eleven was youthful experimentation. And, no, I do not think of him as my boyfriend. I think of him as Scott. Because he is… Scott. And before you ask I do not have fantasies or dreams about him when we are not… rebalancing. I mean I love him and all, but not like that. It is complicated.”

Allison refilled her glass again, and drained the rest of the bottle into Stiles’s glass.

“You know what we are like. We are like ‘The Duchess’.”

Stiles paused for a moment to work out the allusion. “You know, I have never really thought of Scott as the Duke of Devonshire.”

“But you are so Keira Knightly.” Allison was leaning into Stiles, patting his arm. “And I could easily be the other one…”

“Lady Foster” said Stiles. Research was what he did, trivia was his speciality.

“Right. And they made it work. And I think if we are grown up about it we can easily make this work.”

“Right”. Stiles felt comfortable, for the first time in a long time, with where things were going. “You know I was never happy when I thought you did not know. I had assumed that Scott and I would stop, you know, when you and he…”

“I know.” Allison paused. “But I think this is better. And Scott tells me everything. Since the werewolf reveal, at any rate. No secrets.” Another pause. “Scott said you thought it was on the new moon cycle?”

Stiles nodded.

“I am not so sure. I think it might be a little more frequent than that. I mean the new moon cycle seems to fit with the lore, and the rebalancing, but if you think about it Scott is always an omega, and always an alpha, so…”

“I am not perpetually having sex with your boyfriend.” Stiles was horrified.

“Not quite that, but you might be called upon every couple of weeks or so. I can sense something building slowly in him, and I think…”

Stiles paused to reflect on that. It might be true. Only time would tell. “You would be OK with that?”

“Of course. It would not be gratuitous, just necessary”. They sat in silence, a companionable silence, for a while, before in a lighter tone Allison said “And if you are Keira Knightly, I bet I can guess who Dominic Cooper is.”

Stiles tensed. “No, there isn’t any Charles Grey. That sort of thing… that isn’t for me.” He knew he was casting a pall over the conversation, but the topic was too raw for him to touch on. Allison hugged him again, and after a moment again tried to lighten the tone.

“So, when you and Scott are rebalancing, does he… I mean the high pitched noise?”

“The yipping sound?” Stiles snorted with laughter. “He does that with you too?”

“Yipping. That is just the right word”. Allison dissolved into giggles. “He says it is his inner wolf coming out.”

“His inner Pekinese”

At that moment Stiles’s bedroom door swung open. Scott stood, looking in bemusement at Allison and Stiles, convulsed in laughter on the floor. “What is so funny?”

The two of them looked up at him, and broke into a fresh wave of giggles.


	16. Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a complete, unmitigated disaster.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Just go, Derek. Just go.”

The next week settled into the old rhythm, with some adjustment. Scott came over almost as often as ever, though not generally in the evening. What was new was Allison stopping by, generally on her own but on a couple of occasions with Lydia, whenever Scott was at Deaton’s. Allison swore she had not said anything to anyone, and it was obviously true that she had not said anything to Scott, but the first words Lydia had spoken to Stiles on the first evening she came over were “we have to get you a new wardrobe. No one is ever going to believe you are gay otherwise.” She had then kissed Stiles lightly on both cheeks, stood back to look at him, sighed deeply, and hugged him. Stiles was now scheduled to go clothes shopping with her the following weekend. He did not know what he felt about that. Terror was probably the dominant emotion.

It was the Friday before the mall trip that Scott turned up in Stiles’s room. It was early evening, and he had clearly cycled across from Deaton’s. Equally clearly, he was unbalanced. The slightly hyper behaviour, the twitching – it was all there.

“Hey buddy”. Stiles stood up from his research and crossed to the door where Scott stood. “That time again, huh?”

Scott looked sheepishly at him. “I didn’t think it was supposed to be this soon. And it is not as bad as on the new moon. But…”

“Allison had a theory”. Scott started to go dewy eyed at the mention of Allison. Stiles snapped his fingers a couple of times “Hey buddy, over here. Here boy. So the theory was that the new moon is the cycle, but because you are alpha and omega all the time, the rebalancing beta force needs to be more frequent.”

“Are you OK with that? I mean, I don’t want to force you to…” Scott was blushing again.

“Force me to have sex with a hot dude who I happen to care about? Bro, seriously. Get in here”.

Scott came into the room. Stiles noticed he was holding a padded envelope, which he was shifting nervously from one hand to the other. “And that would be???”

Scott looked down at his hands as if surprised to find himself holding something. “Oh. Yeah. Right. It is a present from Allison.” Another pause. Stiles waited, eyebrows raised until Scott came back to the present. “Ummm. So she said she could not bear to think of you being hurt, and although she did not think you would need it any time soon she wanted you to have it in case. I have no idea what it is. She said I would find out soon enough.”

Stiles was bemused. He took the envelope from Scott and opened it. Inside was a long piece of wood with several holes drilled in it. As he looked at it Stiles cracked up laughing. Scott just looked bemused.

“Stiles, what on earth is that?”

“Scott, seriously, do you even know how to use the internet? That, Scotty boy, is a paddle. In order to save my delicate hands from any pain if I am forced to spank your fine bubble butt at any point.”

“Allison gave you that?” Scott sounded outraged. “And, wait, stop right now with the bubble butt stuff. Allison says I have a pert ass.”

Stiles looked at Scott. “Whatever you want to believe bro. But I don’t think you ass, pert or otherwise, needs to be spanked today. You are not feeling that unbalanced are you?”

Scott shook his head.

“OK, then. We need to have a talk. If we are going to be doing this regularly, or more regularly than I had envisaged, I want it to be as pain free as possible. Unless pain is required of course.” Stiles gave the paddle a couple of experimental swishes through the air. “So, dude, you need to tell me what you like.”

Scott blushed furiously and looked studiously at his shoes. “I don’t know” he mumbled.

“Come on, Scott. What does it take? If you tell me, I might do it. Might, I said, because I am the alpha here. What does it take to get you to lose your inhibitions? Do I have to ask Allison?”

“Stiles, you promised”

“I promised not to talk about sex with her unless it was necessary. You are making it necessary. So, spill. What do you like?”

Scott mumbled something incoherent. 

“Didn’t catch that Scott.”

Scott looked up, defiant and beetroot red at the same time. “I like the nipple thing you did. And when you jerked me off, the thing with the thumb on the top of my… thing.”

“Seriously Scott? Your thing?” Stiles sighed. “And what haven’t we done that you might like?” 

Scott looked confused. “I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t really thought about it. I mean, you know I’m not… not gay? I like some of the stuff you do, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t really know what the options are. Though I guess I would like to do stuff that makes you happy too.” Scott seemed to go a deeper red, if that were possible. “And, I quite like blow jobs”. 

Stiles reflected on that. “OK, well let’s research our options. And say ‘Braveheart’ if it is not working or you are not enjoying it or you need to stop.”

Scott pulled off his clothes with his normal indecent haste. A sock came to rest on top of Stiles’s corner lamp, he noticed. Goodness knows where the boxers went this time. Scott stood in front of Stiles, hard and panting slightly with a goofy grin on his face.

“Dude, I get that you are not gay, and Allison seemed to confirm it, but you do seem very… enthusiastic?”

Scott looked a little quizzical at that. “Why wouldn’t I be? I mean, it is sex, right? And I feel rebalanced after which is like the most awesome sensation. Now I can’t get drunk it is the best high I can get. And it is you that is doing all this to me. Why wouldn’t I want it?”

Stiles saw the merits of that. “I might want to investigate the high that you get subsequently, but for now puppy, get over here.” Stiles sat on the bed, legs astride, as Scott bounded towards him. Stiles’s back was to the window, which meant that the thud of feet hitting his floor from by his window was a complete surprise. 

 

 

Stiles turned abruptly, grasping at his chest like some heroine in a Georgian melodrama, if Georgian heroines wore flannel plaid shirts. Which they probably didn’t. 

Derek stood by the window. But not the shambolic Derek of two weeks ago. This Derek had on a clean white shirt. Stiles had never seen Derek in a clean white anything, far less a shirt with a collar, and what appeared to be cufflinks. The spray on jeans seemed new too, though as sprayed on as ever. And Derek had shaved. Stiles was not sure he had ever seen a clean shaven Derek. He assumed it was some kind of werewolf impossibility. Derek also seemed to be holding a large paper bag, from which Stiles could detect the faint odour of hydrogenated fat that in his trained experience was typically associated with curly fries. It made no sense. But Stiles was not able to investigate further because Derek threw the bag behind him, out of the window, and transformed into an alpha before him.

A snarl behind Stiles alerted him to the fact that Scott had transformed too. Scott hurriedly moved round the bed, putting himself between Derek and Stiles, but Derek seemed to be focused on Scott alone. And suddenly enlightenment struck Stiles. This was some kind of pack infighting between Scott and Derek, and not about him; but this was his territory and he was the alpha. Derek was being a complete jerk for some reason, and Scott was reacting as an alpha defending his pack – but in this room, both of them were betas in Stiles’s pack. 

“Stop”. Stiles gave the word all the authority he could. “I am the alpha here, and I won’t have you two tearing up the furniture.” He pushed Scott to one side as he got up off the bed and pointed a finger at Derek who was rapidly transforming back. “What? You thought I was your exclusive sex toy? Someone to stop by to get rebalanced, when you feel like it? Some kind of research app, plus – to be downloaded as required? I have got news for you buddy. Scott is just as much a Hale alpha as you are, more so, in my view. He has your mother’s alpha traits as well as the Hale traits. I don’t know what genetic cesspool your traits came from but your behaviour is nothing like what I have read a true Hale alpha as exhibiting. So, yes, I rebalance Scott, and it is far better than anything we have done. I actually care for Scott, care what happens to him, and he cares for me. So don’t come in here with red flashing eyes and…”

Stiles knew he was letting irrational anger wash over him. He felt out of control. He knew he should stop but he couldn’t. He turned to Scott, who was lying naked on the bed. “Go and stand over by the other side of the bed, puppy.”

Scott, now fully human, went meekly across.

“And you, beta. Strip down, now.”

Derek bowed his head, and began his slow, obsessive stripping. He folded his clothes deliberately, in a way that just made Stiles more irate. “Hurry it up, beta boy.”

Derek finished, his clothes stacked in a tidy pile on top of the desk. 

“Go and stand next to the puppy.”

Stiles’s anger had not abated in the slightest. Every twinge of emotional pain he had felt, the hatred of the way things were with Derek compared to what he wanted them to be. His brief moments of jealousy at what Scott had with Allison, and the calm contentment they had found. His anger at how he had so thoroughly messed up his own life and let down his father and the memory of his mother. His certainty that he was going to be alone, used as some fucked up antidote by alpha werewolves, for the rest of his life.

The tight ball of rage that had been building in his chest seemed to exploded. “OK, beta, puppy, jerk each other off.” Scott and Derek both looked at him, aghast. “I said NOW”. Stiles shouted with a force he had not used for years. He almost screamed. Not since he had raged against the universe and all its evil forces in Scott’s bedroom, the night after his mother’s funeral, had he allowed such anger to the surface. Scott and Derek both visibly cringed away from him, and tentatively reached out their hands to grab the other’s cock. “Now, dammit. You want rebalancing? You can do it on my terms.”

Scott and Derek began slowly stroking each other. Both were hard to start with, both seemed to have been anticipating their time with Stiles. Assuming Derek had come through the window with that intention, of course, and Stiles had no reason to doubt it. There was no other reason for him to visit. Stiles mentally summoned up his research on werewolf rituals to find other ways of enforcing his alpha rights. 

“Nuzzle each other’s necks.” 

A whimper broke from both Derek and Scott, but they complied. Leaning in to one another while still stroking the other’s cock with increasing vigour. Stiles could almost see the sexual tension rising in Derek, as a flush spread over his skin from his neck down. Derek kept throwing downcast glances in his direction, as if he could not believe what was happening. Scott was hidden from Stiles’s view on the other side of Derek, but kept moving his hand in accordance with Stiles’s orders.

Suddenly both of them seemed to shudder. There seemed to be some weird kind of bond between them, the synchronisation of their rhythms, and then of their reactions was too coordinated to be a coincidence. Both paused in their strokes, both gasped, and Scott began his high pitched yipping sound – though more muted than when he had been with Stiles. Suddenly both spurted out a stream of cum, which splashed across the other. Their heads were already leaning against the other’s neck, and now in the afterglow of orgasm they seemed to collapse their whole bodies against one another.

“On the floor, side by side. Now.”

Scott and Derek slid to the floor, heads towards Stiles’s bed and feet in the general direction of his door. Stiles picked his way over their legs, to stand over them. He tore off his T shirt, unbuttoned his jeans, and pushed them down with a vehemence born of rage. Taking his dick in his hand he began to pull angrily, almost painfully. His semi hard dick swelled in response and within a minute pre cum was starting to leak. Stiles stared down at the two forms beneath him. Scott was looking up at him, a mixture of incomprehension and concern. Derek had his eyes closed, and his mouth was moving silently - although as Scott occasionally glanced at him with an additional level of puzzlement, perhaps it was only silent for humans. 

Stiles tried everything to get this over with. Every practiced trick from some considerable experience at self-gratification was brought out, and after another minute a hot spurt of cum splattered across the faces of the two betas beneath him. Stiles felt little release from the orgasm. A couple of stutters followed the initial spasm and spurt, which was followed by a great sense of being let down. Let down by his own behaviour. Let down by allowing rage to take control of him. He squeezed the last dribbles out, not noticing who they hit, and kicked off his jeans as he stepped over Scott’s legs. Turning his back on the pair of them, he moved over to the desk, resting his hands on top and breathing deeply through his nose. 

There was a slight stirring behind him.

“Are you rebalanced?”

It was Scott who answered. “Yes. Stiles…”

“Good. Derek, you can go now.”

Derek cleared his throat, as if to say something. Stiles caught up Derek’s clothes from where they lay beside him on the desk, and threw them behind him without looking. “You got what you came for. You don’t need anything else. I sure as hell don’t want anything else. You can go.”

He heard Derek catch the clothes, effortlessly. Of course. Stupid rebalanced alpha reflexes. Derek moved slowly towards the door – Stiles could hear, but he resolutely refused to look around. Derek seemed to pause, and Stiles shouted out with a real sense of anguish,

“Just go, Derek. Just go.”

Another pause, and then simultaneously Stiles heard Derek move out, and Scott (still lying prone on the floor, or so Stiles assumed) gave out gasp that sounded like complete surprise.

 

 

Stiles stood, hands on desk, breathing deeply, for some time. How long, he had no idea. Scott seemed to be moving behind him when all of a sudden a sense of being forsaken, abandoned in some kind of supernatural hell, over took Stiles. He suddenly began pounding his fists against the top of his desk. “Damn him, damn him, damn him, damn him…”. The volume of his voice started rising with each crash of his fists against the desk, until he suddenly felt Scott behind him, and Scott’s hands caught each of his in a firm grasp. Scott pulled Stiles into a hug and manhandled him over to the bed. Stiles’s outburst was by no means over. Scott carefully pulled Stiles down to the bed.

Stiles immediately started attacking, swinging his fists in an impotent gesture (given he was hitting a werewolf). Scott lay flat beside him, unresisting. He might as well have been playing dead for all the reaction he gave. Stiles's hysteria was rising, he was in a full blown panic attack, and Scott just kept very still. Eventually Stiles’s hysteria gave way to sobbing, and he leant in towards Scott. Stiles was worn out, the energy draining from him – not even his frenetic manner could keep this up. The sobs subsided into sniffs. After a few minutes he was quietened, and lay there, paralysed with horror at what he had just done.

Scott slowly reached out to Stiles, and gently petted his cheek with the back of his hand.

“It is OK Stiles. Everything will be OK.”

Stiles was having difficulty drawing the breath needed to speak. After a couple of hiccups he got out. “I shouldn’t have… I should never have made you… that was wrong… I… but I was… I am a terrible friend… I… “

“Shush….” Scott was still stroking, still with the back of his hand. “Look, that was not my favourite night ever, but it worked, right? You rebalanced both of us. That more than makes up for a couple of minutes of awkwardness. You had to do something to defuse the situation. And you are the best friend I could ever have had. I have no idea how a nerd like me deserves someone as awesome as you.”

Eventually Stiles felt a calm creep over him. The gentle motion of Scott’s hand (always the back of the hand, was that weird?) started to sooth. Stiles’s breathing became a little more regular, and he closed his eyes. 

After a couple of minutes, Scott whispered at him

“Stiles, are you still awake?”

Stiles did not want to reply. He did not want to discuss what had just happened, even with Scott. Not now. But Scott did not push the issue. Stiles felt the very gentle pressure of Scott’s lips on his forehead, and heard him whisper “You sleep, buddy. It will seem better in the morning, I promise.”

Stiles felt the pressure shift as Scott got off the bed. A couple of minutes later he heard the sound of the shower running down the hall. He assumed Scott was preparing to leave, but ten minutes later as he heard Scott come back into the room, there seemed to be a subdued but frantic searching going on. Eventually he heard a quiet, triumphant “Aha”, and Scott seemed to step out into the hallway again.

Another minute of silence and it then became clear that Scott had been searching for his Samsung phone, and was calling Allison. Stiles half listened to the conversation, not to eavesdrop but because he was not really capable of tuning out.

“Allison, it’s me. No, everything is OK. Well, not really. But OK with me.”

A pause.

“No, no, I am rebalanced. Though in a weird way. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. But I need to stay here tonight. Stiles needs me as a friend. He is so messed up right now, and this is my fault. I dragged him into this weird supernatural shit. And he is…”

Stiles shifted a little on the mattress. Scott obviously heard.

“I can’t talk right now. I love you, so much Allison. And I want you to know that I will never keep anything from you. Whatever I am feeling, whatever I’m thinking I will always share. And you must promise to always share everything with me. Because if people have even a hint of misunderstanding between them…”

Another pause. A longer one.

“Yes, something has happened, but not to me. Well, other than that I have been a complete idiot for not spotting it earlier. And I need your help to make it right. You know I am not very good at plans. But we have got to make this right.”

Stiles obviously shifted again, because Scott suddenly said, more urgently

“I have to get back to Stiles. He needs a friend tonight. Like, really needs a friend. I’ll call as soon as I can tomorrow. Please try and meet me as soon as I call. This really needs to get sorted. I love you, and I am never going to keep anything from you, ever, you know that right? I love you”. Scott ended the call with a tone of such absolute sincerity that Stiles could feel the jealousy welling up inside him again – not associated with rage anymore, but with longing.

Stiles had no idea what it all meant. He heard Scott creep back in, and fumble around until he had pulled on boxers and Tshirt – or so Stiles assumed. Scott then pulled a pair of boxers onto Stiles – who pretended to be half asleep.

“Come on buddy, we don’t want your father walking in on us like this tomorrow.”

Boxers on, and probably the right way around, Stiles faked full sleep once again. Scott kissed him on the forehead a second time.

“Goodnight Stiles. I will sort this, I promise.”


	17. Talk, damn it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I TOLD you”
> 
> “LIAR”

Stiles surprised himself by waking the following morning. He surprised himself because he was convinced he was never going to be able to sleep, and was condemned to hours of wakeful contemplation on what an awful person he was. But at eight o’clock the following morning he was dragged rudely into consciousness by a sharp rapping at his door, and his dad’s voice.

“Stiles, your friend Lydia has called the house phone to say you are ignoring her mobile calls, and you have precisely forty five minutes to make yourself presentable.” The door creaked open, and his father’s head appeared round the edge.

“Stiles? You hear me? Get up, because I do not want to field another call from that girl. She terrifies the life out of me. Hey Scott.”

“Sheriff.” Scott’s voice was choked with sleep, and he raised his hand from Stiles’s bare back in a half-hearted wave, before letting it fall heavily down again somewhere between Stiles’s shoulders.

“Sort yourselves out some breakfast. I’ll grab something at the diner on the way to the station.”

“No bacon. I will check with Kirsten, and if I find there is bacon anywhere near your breakfast…” Stiles half pushed himself up, to Scott’s muttered remonstrances.

“Jeez, now he’s awake” the Sheriff complained, pulling the door closed.

Stiles turned to Scott, who was blearily staring at him in the half-light coming through Stiles’s window blinds. “Dude, last night. I am so, so, so…”

Scott put a hand over Stiles’s mouth. Stiles could taste the lemony shower gel from his bathroom. “Stiles, shut up. We covered this last night. It is all good. A bit weird, but good. I am rebalanced, I feel great. Anything else is just shit that happens from time to time, right?”

Stiles still tried to speak.

“And you are going to agree that it is all good, or I am going to keep my hand here until you do. And frankly, dude, I do not want to spend the day wandering round shopping malls with you and Lydia with my hand over your mouth. It would make trying on new clothes, like, super awkward.”

Stiles rolled his eyes in what he hoped was a demonstration of annoyance and frustration.

“Come on Stiles. I have mega alpha power again. Last night is done with, agreed.”

Stiles huffed annoyance against the palm of Scott’s hand, and then nodded.

“Good boy. Go get showered. Because, God, do you need to get showered.”

Stiles glared again, and moved off into the bathroom. As he stepped into the spray of the shower he said in a quiet tone, but one he knew Scott could hear if he were tuning in “I should never, ever have done that Scott. I am so sorry bro. I won’t let the anger take over again. I promise.” From the slightly soppy, but reproachful look he got when he re-entered the bedroom ten minutes later, he guessed Scott had heard.

 

 

Shopping for clothes with Lydia was… an experience. There was a fanaticism combined with military precision and Lydia’s born ability to command that left Stiles weak kneed. In fact, he appeared to have been entirely filleted. The critique started as soon as he had opened the passenger door of the jeep to let Lydia out.

“So, number one you are going to clean up the inside of that jeep. I am never allowing clothes I have selected to sit on seats like that. And was that wolfsbane I saw on the back seat?”

Stiles muttered about necessary precautions.

“Two, your choice in T shirts is not bad. Quite classic in a lot of ways. Reasonable styling. But too baggy. We are going to have to show off your body a bit more.” She grabbed at Stiles’s chest in a manner that had him squeaking and leaping backwards – in a manly sort of a way, of course. “Oh, please. Get over it. I will be coming into changing rooms with you today so you had better get used to this.”

Stiles just mouthed silent, incoherent protests.

“And jeans need careful rethinking. Your jackets are generally pretty good, it is a look – of a sort – but it works on you. But shirts… why you ever thought plaid was suitable for your colouring, or for the twenty first century or for anyone, anytime, ever in the history of human existence is beyond me.”

Stiles made an inarticulate noise of protest, which was one step up on silent incoherence but not, he would be the first to admit, the best line of defence.

“And we will also need to talk underwear at some point.”

Vocal and non-vocal protests were no longer enough. Stiles opened his mouth, gargled ineffectively, and followed the whole thing up with a violent double handed flailing gesture that went to signal how far things were going wrong in his view. 

Lydia smiled beatifically and pulled one of Stiles’s arms through her own, before striding purposefully in the direction of Macy’s.

“Come on. This is going to be such fun.”

Stiles had difficulty replicating the bright optimism he heard in Lydia’s tone.

 

 

They had paused for a late lunch – salad for Lydia, salad for Stiles because he did not get to order. In vain he had tried to protest that he only ate junk food when his dad was not around, and these were rare treats to be celebrated. Lydia had blithely ignored him. Their phones simultaneously blared out. The Crystal Fighters from Stiles’s phone, the theme tune from “Arrow” from Lydia’s.

Scott’s to Stiles text was to the point “Dude, pack meeting tonight at 7. Don’t be late. Urgent.” Stiles reflected that it was quite a lot of words for a Scott text. And there was a correct use of an apostrophe as well. It was almost like it had been dictated. Weird.

He looked over at Lydia.

“Perfect”. Lydia’s face was lit up with some kind of enthusiastic glee. Stiles looked questioningly at her.

“Just a text from Allison. Girl time this evening.” She waved her hand in a dismissive manner. “Now, we need to talk about moisturiser”.

“I have to get to Scott’s for seven”. Stiles was beginning to fear he was going to be stuck in a shopping mall for eternity, trying on jeans and having Lydia comment on whether they hugged his butt sufficiently or not. And while once upon a time that would have been a fantasy, now it was getting exhausting. 

“Don’t worry, Stileserella, you will get to the ball on time. Or whatever it is you two get up to on a bromantic evening.”

Stiles malevolently chewed the straw of his Diet Coke and thought rebellious thoughts, very, very loudly, in Lydia’s direction.

 

 

Stiles drew up outside Scott’s at seven, stepping out of his newly valeted Jeep (Lydia had made him stop by a place on the way back from the mall). He was wearing one of his own Ben Sherman T shirts, but everything else was new. There was a belt that matched his shoes, which was just weird. New jeans, which were tight in different places from his old jeans. A new jacket that was cut to ‘exaggerate the V shape of his torso and emphasise his slender waist’ – apparently. Even the boxer briefs were new, and Stiles had an itching suspicion that a bit of the plastic from the price tag remained in the waistband. He squirmed uncomfortably. He had told Lydia this was unnecessary, he was only going to get messed up, but she had been her normal domineering self.

Stiles unlocked the front door and headed towards the stairs. 

“In here Stiles”. Scott was calling from the ground floor somewhere, which was odd. And possibly from the kitchen, which was odder. 

Stiles rounded the corner into the family room, just as Scott came out of the kitchen door. Stiles came shuddering to a halt, and started at Scott with a horrified glance that showed his sense of complete betrayal.

“What is HE doing here? Scott? How, how, how DARE you?”

Derek Hale was sitting, obviously uncomfortable, wearing of all things a shirt and a tie, on the edge of the couch. 

 

 

“Stiles.” Scott’s tone was reasonable, but there was an edge of authority to it. “We are going to sit down like adults and talk about this. And I am going to act as a mediator, and as a lie detector, and make sure that any and all misunderstandings are cleared up.”

Stiles stared again at his best friend, who very possibly was becoming his former best friend by the second.

“Why are you wearing that?”

Scott was wearing black jeans, a white shirt and an unmistakable black bow tie. And a white apron. It was just weird.

“Never mind that now. We will come to that. We need to talk. Well, you two need to talk, and seeing as you are both complete failures at talking I am going to have to facilitate it for you.”

Stiles could not understand what was happening.

“Stiles, you need to admit that you have feelings for Derek”

Stiles felt entirely betrayed. What had happened last night, the emotion he had let slip out, that was private. It was not Scott’s to share. “NO I DON’T” he roared, cursing as he felt tears pushing into his eyes. Why was Scott doing this? Was this some kind of payback for last night? He had been so forgiving this morning.

“You heard that lie, right?” Scott turned to Derek, who had lifted his head from the seemingly eternal contemplation of his shoes that he had been doing since Stiles had walked in. “I mean, even a human would have been able to detect that lie.”

Stiles bit his lower lip and contemplated wolfsbane related assaults on the Judas before him.

“And Derek, you have feelings for Stiles, right?”

Nothing. No reaction.

“Right?”

There was the faintest of nods from Derek, who was looking at Stiles with a confused blend of uncertainty and hopefulness.

“He says yes” Scott interpreted helpfully.

Stiles looked at Derek, then at Scott. Then at Derek. Then tried to remember when he had last taken any Adderall. Or any hallucinogenic drugs. 

Scott seemed to be ploughing on regardless. “Last night, when Stiles told you to go, I saw your face and for the first time I understood. I had just had Stiles’s version of events until then, where you were just using him and didn’t care at all. But when he shouted at you to leave, the pain on your face… you just sort of collapsed in on yourself. I don’t ever want to see anyone go through anything like that.” Scott shuddered at the recollection. “No one ever deserves that kind of misery.”

“And you”. Scott turned to Stiles. “Bro, you are the master of words. Couldn’t you have said something? How did the communication get so bad? The pain you put Derek through. The pain you put yourself through. You have shared every little detail of your life since kindergarten with me. Could you not have happened to mention to the idiot over there that you liked him?”

Stiles looked at him, trying to pull his mind back into some semblance of working order.

“Never mind. We have the whole evening to straighten out the details now that the big picture is resolved. Follow me, both of you”. Derek stood up mechanically, and he and Stiles moved off after Scott – still keeping a wary distance, but casting covetous glances at each other while simultaneously trying to avoid being caught looking at each other.

 

“Voila.” Scott was clearly proud, and where the hell did he learn French? And how to fold table napkins? The McCall dining table, that Stiles had only ever seen laid for Thanksgiving dinners, was set for two. There were lit candles. There were flowers. There was folded, starched linen. “My name is Scott and I will be your waiter and facilitator this evening. So sit down and don’t start on the conversation until I get back.” Scott pushed them into their seats, handed each of them a glass of what looked like champagne – just, what? – and disappeared purposefully in the direction of the kitchen. 

In the dining room, silence reigned. 

 

 

The silence was not a comfortable silence. It was an ocean of awkwardness, stretching out in all directions. Stiles’s mind was shifting in a restless confusion. How could Derek have feelings for him? But Scott could tell if he lied. Unless that did not work on werewolves. But wouldn’t Scott know that? And… of course, loathing was a feeling. Despising someone was a feeling. Perhaps those were the feelings Derek had for Stiles, and he was just playing along to increase Stiles’s humiliation? 

There was a banging noise from the kitchen and Scott backed into the dining room carrying two small plates. “So, my name is Scott and I will be your…. Shoot, I did that already. An amuse bouche, then. Warm French onion tartlets with crème fraiche and chive side thingy”.

Stiles just stared at Scott. Derek seemed similarly mesmerised.

“Scott, buddy, this is wrong. Derek doesn’t… I mean he isn’t… “. Stiles’s voice tailed off. “He hates me. Or despises me. That is the feeling he…”. Stiles stopped. He was just too pathetic.

Scott deposited the plates in front of Derek and Stiles. Derek was glaring now at Stiles, but not in the normal angry way. There was something different about this glare. 

“Stiles. Shut up. Drink your imitation champagne and eat your amuse bouche. You too Derek. Please.”

Stiles took a gulp of the wine, too fast. The bubbles went up his nose and he wrinkled his face up to avoid a sneezing fit. The tartlet he avoided for the moment. He had eaten Scott’s food before. The guy could culture food poisoning from a pop tart.

“Stiles, we will start with you. Why are you so convinced Derek isn’t interested in you?”

“Why would he be? I mean” Stiles gestured from head to waist with his left hand – the right was wedded firmly to the glass of alcohol “I mean look at me? He thinks I am just a kid, he has no interest in me at all. He told me so, he said just wanted sex and only chose me because it was easier than a random hook up. No doubt he can smell the desperation? Right from the start, it was just sex.”

There was a growl from Derek, the first articulation he had made all evening – if a growl counted as articulation. He followed it up with an angry accusation. “You were so horrified at the idea of sleeping with me, you found the idea so repugnant when I suggested it…”

Stiles stared at him, open mouthed, for about thirty seconds. Then he remembered he had some alcohol left in his glass, and drained it. 

“Repugnant? HOW could I find you…? HOW could you think that? Are you insane? You come in to my room and suddenly blurt out that you want me to have sex with you when I have never had sex with anyone before, and when I have wanted to have…” Stiles paused, panting. “You know what? I am not going to gratify your ego by humiliating myself any further.” Stiles tried to get up, but Scott pushed him back to his seat and kept one hand on his shoulder – while refilling Stiles’s glass.

“You just stood there, looking horrified at the very idea”. Derek was mumbling.

“I was SHOCKED.” Stiles could not believe this. “How could you not think I was shocked? I mean, you are you. 95% of the female population of this town are following you with their eyes when you walk down the street, and a good 5% to 10% of the men if statistics are to be believed. I did not know how to react. No one has ever shown any interest in me before, because why would they? And you barge in demanding sexy times in the name of werewolf equilibrium…”

“I TOLD you how I felt. That first time, with you standing over me, I TOLD YOU. I FUCKING POURED OUT MY HEART to you and you just STOOD there staring off into middle distance and ignored me.” Derek’s eyes had flickered red. Scott was leaning forwards a little, slightly defensively, hand still on Stiles’s shoulder. “I haven’t told anyone anything like that since…. And you just rejected me.”

Stiles felt his rage rising “LIAR. You told me ‘just sex’ because that is all I am good for, and not even any good at that given the disgust on your face. You could not wait to get out of there.”

“I TOLD you”

“LIAR”

Tears were streaming down Stile’s face now. Angry, hot tears of humiliation, and rage, and frustration and everything bad and wrong in this world.

Scott leaned an arm across the table towards Derek and kept Stiles in his seat with his other hand. “He is not lying Stiles. I can tell. He told you something that night.” He turned to Derek.

“This was the first time you and Stiles had sex?”

Derek nodded, sullenly.

“Stiles does not think you said anything. I don’t know if you were focused, but he was not lying just then. And you think you did say something. So, what did you tell him, when?” 

Derek looked as if he was going to try and be offended at the intimacy of the questions, but something on Scott’s face – Stiles was betting it was Scott’s puppy eyes again – stopped him. 

“Straight after he… once we… when he had finished, and I had finished, I told him that I wanted more than just a physical relationship, that I had had…. feelings… for him for a long time. That if he wanted to do something about that we could ignore the sex part and try and see if the feelings went anywhere. But if he didn’t have feelings for me then it could be just sex.”

Stiles did not believe a word, but Scott squeezed his shoulder and said

“He is telling the truth.”

“But I never heard that. Why didn’t I hear that? I would have… wait… RIGHT after?”

Derek nodded.

“When I was in the middle of a full blown, pathetic panic attack about how bad I was and about how you were never going to see me again, and when I was doing the meditation Dr Cullen taught me to stop the hysterical crying and general curling into a ball in the corner of the room?”

Derek nodded, hesitantly, with a hopeful look inching slowly up his face.

“Dude I was freaking out. How could you not see I was freaking out? I was freaking out. I never heard you.”

Stiles suddenly had a moment of optimism. A moment of hope. His life may not be a barren wasteland of loneliness as the eternal wing man to Beacon Hill’s answer to Bella Swan. He might… but then reality bit back, and bit back hard.

“Right. And so the disgust at my touch, the refusal to look at me when we were… when we were doing whatever you want to call it? The muttering under your breath to distract yourself from the awfulness of what was going on? You hated every minute you were with me. You could not leave fast enough.”

Derek hung his head, and Stiles knew with a sickening feeling that he was right. He disgusted Derek. He probably disgusted everyone. How Scott had tolerated him all these years was a mystery.

Derek muttered something, looking down at the table as he did. Stiles did not hear him.

“I am sorry, Derek” there was a bitter emphasis on the name ‘Derek’ – “But I am nothing special. I don’t have werewolf hearing. I did not understand that.”

Derek raised his face. His eyes were especially shiny in the candlelight, Stiles noted, inconsequentially. His voice seemed throaty as he said “I said I did not hate it. I just was not… prepared for it. It brought back unpleasant associations”.

Stiles could not make head nor tail of that. He charged on regardless, ignoring Scott’s hand pressuring his shoulder as if to restrain him.

“I was the virgin, which was blindingly obvious to all concerned. You are the one with all the experience. You were supposed to offer some support, not run off at the first possible opportunity, to wash the scent of the obviously unpleasant escapade off of your skin. I never wanted my first love” Stiles stuttered and flailed with his free hand. He had not meant to say that. “My first, whatever, to be so... sordid. I wanted to be loved back. I wanted to share things, I wanted cuddles and walks and inside jokes, and holding each other and… and… and… I wanted to be kissed. Right? How absurd is that? What a joke - Stiles wanted to be kissed, when clearly no one would ever want to go anywhere near him far less kiss him. How could you not know that? You have all this experience, don’t you remember what it is like? The aching need to be close to someone? The angst when you know you are not good enough for them? The anticipation you get when you are driving three fucking miles out of your way to go past their apartment to see if they are home, if there is just a light showing, even though you know you will never do anything but drive right by if they are home? You are not some robot - you obviously care about other people, I know you care about Scott…” Scott seemed a little startled by that “and your pack and... and… everyone but me.”

Derek mumbled again, and Scott gave a surprised gasp. Stiles just stared across the table at Derek, watching as his face blurred and cleared, blurred and cleared as Stiles tried to blink away his tears. The pressure of Scott’s hand on his shoulder was the only thing stopping Stiles from charging out the door.

“I said” Derek was looking at Stiles directly “I do not have experience. I have” there was a pause “I have been with one person. Once. Seven years ago. And she destroyed me, everything, completely. I have never been able to let anyone else near me until you.”

Stiles stared, his jaw slowly dropping in astonishment. Derek was looking resolutely at the onion tartlet and the slowly widening blob of crème fraiche on his plate. Suddenly Stiles felt Scott’s hand leave his shoulder, and his best friend (if Scott was still his best friend after tonight) dashed round the table and pulled Derek into a hug.

“Oh, God, Derek.” Scott’s voice broke with emotion. Derek seemed to have gone rigid with shock. Stiles had certainly gone rigid with shock. “Derek, I could not work out what you were muttering last night. It sounded like ‘not great’ which sort of made sense, but not really, but…. Oh, my God Derek it was not your fault. She was evil and twisted and took advantage of you and…”

Derek seemed to slump against Scott at this point. Stiles stared, in total incomprehension. This was some weird parallel universe. Derek’s shoulders seemed to be heaving up and down as Scott gently stroked his back. Stiles's mind had frozen. 

After some minutes, Derek seemed to still. Scott looked across the table, and breathed out so heavily that the candles guttered. His eyes flashed red briefly, and he seemed to be in the grip of some kind of powerful emotion. 

“Stiles” Scott kept stroking Derek’s back. “The only other person Derek has slept with was Kate Argent.”


	18. Triskelion and true insight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles thought some more. “So you brought a bag over last night. What was in that?”
> 
> “Curly fries. Better than flowers, I thought.”
> 
> “And you thought right. And… hold on, you threw them out the window. You threw a portion” Derek held up two fingers of his right hand “Two portions? For the sake of our future grandkids I am going to ignore that. You threw A portion of curly fries out of the window, uneaten? Dude, I am reevaluating this relationship as we speak.”

Stiles could not really take it in. There was maybe half a minute while the information went from ears to brain, and the brain checked the ears were not playing tricks, and validation came through. Then there was a roar as the Tron lightbikes tore around Stiles’s brain. The fire. The associations Derek must have with any kind of emotional intimacy. The horror of holding knowledge like this, repressing it, for seven years. And then with sickening clarity Stiles remembered what had originally suggested Derek do to rebalance himself – with an older woman. Derek’s reaction to that. The reaction when Stiles had… 

Stiles reached out a hand across the table.

“Derek…”

His voice was shaken, barely audible. How had he not known? How had he not noticed? Stiles noticed stuff. That was what he did. He had failed to notice any of this. He was a truly awful, awful person.

Derek stayed still, Scott quietly stroking his back. Stiles looked on in horror. This was his fault. He had broken Derek through being self-absorbed and… The lightbikes of Stiles’s thought process crashed in a massive fireball. He began to draw his hand back across the table, just as the panic attack began.

 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Pause. Breathe in. Breathe out. Pause. Stiles went through the routine. The jagged, gasping breathes subsided into something regular. He became aware that he was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, somewhere. And someone was holding him. It must be Scott. Scott always knew what to do. And Scott was saying his name, urgently. But it did not feel like Scott. Scott felt softer than that. And not quite so massive. And his face was less… less… less scratchy. And he did not speak like that.

Stiles brought his breathing under control, and focused on Scott standing opposite him.

“He’ll be OK now. I’ll leave you two to talk”. And Scott turned and walked out of his line of sight.

So who was holding him? Stiles heard his name being called again, and looked up into the concerned eyes of Derek. Derek had one arm around his waist, the other hand at his cheek. He looked seriously worried. His eyes were also bloodshot and red, but red around the edges and not red in an alpha wolf red type of a way. And then Stiles remembered and hung his head in a combination of embarrassment, horror, and shame-making, blush inducing recollection. 

“I had a panic attack, didn’t I? A panic attack over the fact that I was too self-absorbed to realise what was going on, and by having the panic attack I managed to draw all of the attention onto me, proving what a self-absorbed… Oh, my God. Derek, I am so sorry for everything I did to you, I did not know. I should have known. You tried to tell me, but I did not know. And I made things worse, and I…”

“Stiles”.

It was like the old way Derek used to say it. Terse. Authoritative. 

“I am so sorry. I just don’t get how to interact with people. And I miss things. I mean, I notice things as well, but I get absorbed and I…”

“Stiles!”

More force this time. Stiles raised his head.

“Shut up.” There was a flash of alpha red to reinforce the point.

“But…” 

And Derek was leaning in. And Stiles did not know what to do or where to look. And Derek was moving his hand from Stiles’s cheek to the back of his neck. And Derek was softly brushing his lips against Stiles’s lips, gently moving his head to bring their mouths closer together, and slowly and ever so slightly parting his lips to breathe against Stiles and… Holy Hell, Stiles was being kissed. And by the only person in the world he wanted to kiss him. And it was real, it was not a fantasy. And it was absolutely not an experiment against the crook of his elbow, not that he had tried that, ever, of course. And it was…

Even in his mind, Stiles stopped talking. 

The kiss did not seem to become more intense. It was intense enough. It was soft, with slightly parted lips, and the faintest of noises from both of them – a soft rumble of a growl from Derek, a slightly choked moan from Stiles. Very occasionally a small electric thrill as teeth touched, or the tip of a tongue moistened both sets of lips. It was a long while - and really who knew or cared how long? - before Derek broke away. Stiles had his eyes closed by this stage and made faint mewling noises and tried to chase after Derek’s mouth as he sat back.

“Stiles”.

Not Derek’s normal tone. A soft tone. Stiles had never heard that before. He opened his eyes.

“Stiles, Scott is going to bring in the next course shortly, I think we had better sit back up at the table.”

Stiles stared without comprehension. Was Derek seriously weighing kissing against Scott’s cooking and coming down in favour of Scott’s cooking? Because that was wrong. On so many, many levels that was wrong. Derek had to be made to understand how wrong it was, though that might require more persuasive arguments than the mewling noises – though Stiles seemed to be having problems making his somewhat swollen lips form themselves into word making shapes. Derek pulled him upright and manoeuvred him back to his seat. And then kissed him again. And Stiles stopped talking in his mind again.

 

Derek sat opposite, holding Stiles’s left hand in his. Stiles just gazed across at him. Derek eventually cleared his throat.

“We probably need to talk about some stuff.”

Stiles quite was happy just gazing, to be honest, but regardless the opportunity for talking was interrupted by the bow tie clad Scott backing into the room with two bowls of soup. 

“Vichyssoise” he said proudly, depositing the bowls in front of them. “Made from scratch. And… crap, bread.”

Exit Scott.

Stiles looked across the table. “You try it first. You have werewolf healing powers.”

Derek raised an eyebrow, and fearlessly picked up his soup spoon to take a mouthful. “It’s good.” He paused. “It is really good.”

Stile tried in vain to hear Derek’s heartbeat and catch him in the lie, but denied such talents tried a miniscule portion himself. And it was good. Like, really, really good.

“Allison?” Stiles called out, just as Scott re-entered carrying a basket with some rolls that looked like they might be home baked. 

“Dude, why do you want Allison? She isn’t here. She’s with Lydia tonight”

“So this is all your own work?”

“Of course. Since you rebalanced me, I have been trying to do things to be a better son for Mom. She has to work so hard, and such long hours. And I see what you do for your Dad, so I tried to copy you a bit and I learned to cook. Just some basic stuff. But enough that Mom has a proper meal when she comes home, or something she can take to the hospital. Nothing complex – this is one of the easier soups.”

Stiles did not know what to say. Derek rubbed his thumb over the back of the hand he was holding.

“So, I wanted to talk to you two about that.”

Stiles looked a little confused, and mumbled through a mouth of pureed leek and potato “about soup?”.

Scott looked like he was resisting the urge to smack Stiles around the back of the head. “No, about the rebalancing.”

Stiles tensed, but Derek squeezed his hand, and looked steadily at him, and pulled him into the depths of his eyes. Stiles calmed at once.

“What do you want to discuss, Scott?” Derek’s voice was steady, but he did not take his eyes off of Stiles’s. 

“Well, what do we do now? I mean, not you. You two do whatever is going to work best for you. But how would you like to deal with me? If you – either of you – don’t want me to be rebalanced by Stiles I will quite understand. I talked it over with Allison, and we don’t think we can rebalance me between us, at least not healthily, but if you – either of you – don’t want Stiles to do it, then I, or we, will find some other way…”

Scott tailed off, and wiped his hands somewhat nervously on his apron.

“It is up to you. Your happiness is what counts.”

Stiles glanced up at Scott. “Do we have to talk about this now?”

“Dude, I think so. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I thought it could wait. I mean, it is broadly a two week cycle. So I am going to need time to make other… arrangements…if you do not want….”

Stiles looked at Derek.

“It is down to you. Scott told me that there were only two people he could do this with. And Allison told me that even before we started to…” Stiles made an all-encompassing gesture with his right hand “she knew that there were three people in their relationship.” Stiles paused, and drew in a breath. “I would like to help Scott, at least for now. You know I love him, right? Not the same way I love you exactly,” Derek audibly gasped when Stiles said he loved him “but it means I feel I should help if I can. But only if you are cool with it. If there is anything, anything at all that would cause you pain I will not do this. Because I have caused you enough pain over the past month to…” Stiles choked. “I mean, what I have with Scott, it is different from what I have with you, or what I don’t have with you but what I want to have with you, if you want to have… I mean, it is not like I sit daydreaming of Scott, or doodling his name in my notebook or anything – not that I am saying that I do that with you. God, you know I do, don’t you? You can sense… What I am trying to say is that it is your choice, and I want whatever you want, and…” Stiles seemed to be having problems with his words again.

Derek held Stiles’s hand tightly in his own and shushed him. “It is not the most normal of relationships, but Allison seems to have been able to manage so I am sure I can.” He looked at Scott. “Will this work for you?”

Scott nodded. “But I want some rules.” Stiles was a little alarmed. “Stiles, whatever you do you must tell Derek everything about what happens between you and I, at least as far as rebalancing goes. Pack stuff is different, but you must be completely open – we both must be – about the sex and rebalancing.“

Scott turned to Derek. “And Derek, you must know that when Stiles and I sleep together it is not gratuitous. It is only when I need it. But that does not mean we will not try to enjoy it, either – right Stiles?” Stile nodded weakly, hesitantly. “I mean, physically I enjoy it, and I can’t lie about that. It is not like with Allison…” pause for goofy look “but I don’t want Stiles to feel uncomfortable or like he is doing this as some horrible duty. Sex is supposed to be fun, even if it is for weird reasons. You need to understand it is only for rebalancing. If we spend the night sleeping over and it is not a rebalancing event, you should not think anything else is happening, or get jealous about it. We sleep over all the time. We have been sharing a bed for years. Stiles is pack, MY pack” the point was emphasised “and more importantly my bro. We will tell you in advance when we will be having sex, and otherwise it is just us being us.”

Derek looked at Stiles, never breaking his gaze “I understand. And I think that is a perfectly workable solution to our situation.”

“Good.” Scott was firm. “If it will help, Allison will talk to you too. But not about details. Never about details. If you don’t want to, it is cool, but the offer is there.

Derek’s voice was a little gruff. “I appreciate it.” 

“Good” Scott’s relief was evident. “Now, I need to go and sort out the main course.” He darted towards the kitchen.

 

 

Derek looked at Stiles with rather unsettling intensity. “Are you sure about this? You and Scott? And you and me? Are you sure you are not being forced into anything?” There was a hesitation in his voice that seemed to go with an undercurrent of pain.

Stiles reflected on what he had heard this evening, and what that was going to mean. He guessed Derek was going to very sensitive to issues of coercion or manipulation. He had to reassure him. 

“Dude, no. Scott and I… I don’t know how to explain it properly. I will sit down at some point and explain Scott and I to you. Scott is in no way a threat to you, to us, to what I want us to…” Stiles paused. “Look when I think about us… don’t freak out…” Derek raised an eyebrow, but squeezed Stiles’s hand. “… when I think about us it is us being married with two kids and living in a nice place with a pool out back, and permanent. But with Scott dropping over with beers to talk about lacrosse or play old style computer games really, really badly. I mean…” Stiles paused. “You are my future. But Scott was always going to be in my future. Shit...” Stiles rubbed his free hand in agitation on the back of his head “I am not explaining this right.”

“I get it”. Derek sounded a little choked up. “I do, I really do understand.” He cleared his throat noisily. “Is that all you think about when you think about us?”

Stiles looked at him. Derek’s gaze ran over Stiles’s body in an unmistakable manner. 

“God, no. I mean, I want the soppy stuff. But I want to see a lot more of you naked. In fact, clothes are optional.”

Derek smiled, and lifted up their interlocked hands to kiss the inside of Stiles’s wrist, nudging at the sleeve of Stiles’s jacket with his nose. Stiles felt his insides melt into happiness. And perhaps a slight amount of lust. Derek slowly lowered their hands, and kept looking at Stiles.

“Soooo.” Stiles was trying to remember how to regulate his breathing. “On the subject of clothes. The tie? Don’t get me wrong, it looks good on you and everything. But I have never seen you in a tie before.”

“Scott got me over here by telling me that his mum wanted to talk over werewolf stuff, and she had invited me for a family dinner.” Enlightenment dawned for Stiles. He was always happier when he knew stuff. “And you? You look – you always look amazing, but tonight you look…”

“I look like I have been captured by Lydia Martin” said Stiles, wryly. “wait, last night” – he winced – “Before I revealed myself to be an awful, awful person, you were in a shirt, with cufflinks, and new jeans?”

“I was going to try and woo you”

Stiles looked at him. “Oh, my God. And I treated you…”

“Hey, hey. It is OK. You weren’t to know, though how you did not know I was attracted to you is a mystery. Every time I heard you drive over to my apartment I kept ripping off my T shirt and flexing. I mean, did you seriously not pick up on that signal?”

“That was a signal? That was you flirting?” Stiles did not know what to make of it. “I assumed that was you being Derek, brooding anti-hero werewolf. If you gave me any thought at all I assumed it would have focused on my relative physical inadequacy”.

Derek picked up their joined hands again, and planted a series of kisses on Stiles’s wrist. “There is no way you are…” another kiss “inadequate. I am the one with the hang-ups. I don’t know how to date, or to flirt. No experience, remember?”

Stiles thought some more. “So you brought a bag over last night. What was in that?”

“Curly fries. Better than flowers, I thought.”

“And you thought right. And… hold on, you threw them out the window. You threw a portion” Derek held up two fingers of his right hand “Two portions? For the sake of our future grandkids I am going to ignore that. You threw A portion of curly fries out of the window, uneaten? Dude, I am reevaluating this relationship as we speak.”

Derek leaned in across the table, pulling a little at Stiles’s hand until he followed suit. Their lips touched gently.

Enter Scott.

Scott was backing in, carrying two hot plates and looking a little flustered. “So, main course is… crap, I forgot to clear the soup…”

Exit Scott.

Derek kissed Stiles quickly again, and pushed him back to his seat. Scott rushed back in, empty handed, and grabbed to two soup bowls – both empty. He disappeared, there was a clatter in the kitchen, and then he reappeared.

“So, pan fried pheasant with a port wine and redcurrant jus, summer vegetables and roast chipped potatoes with rosemary”. The smell was fantastic. Stiles looked open mouthed at his best friend, who was clearly the best friend ever in the whole world. 

“That is… Scott, where did you learn how to do this?”

“Dude, it is you that rebalanced me. Gave me focus. And inspired me. You made me the werewolf I am today.”

“Scott that is too harsh, you can’t blame him for how you turned out”. Derek sounded serious, but then broke into a smile.

“You did NOT just make a joke?” Stiles was disbelieving. And in serious need of alcohol. He cast around vaguely for his glass. 

“One moment” Scott headed back to the kitchen “Start, before it gets cold”.

 

 

Aside from a brief moment of separation for cutting up pheasant breasts, Stiles and Derek sat hand in hand throughout the main course. Scott left them alone, apart from topping up their wine glasses a couple of times. When they had finished – Stiles assumed Scott had been listening for them to finish – he came back in, but stood to the side of them.

“Guys, I want to talk.”

Stiles tore his gaze away from Derek. “Dude, that was awesome, simply awesome. You are a wonderful best friend.”

Scott grinned hugely, but then pulled out a chair and sat down. 

“Seriously. I don’t want to make this too heavy, but I have been thinking about the Hale alphas, and the Triskelion and everything. And I have a theory.”

Stiles tried to keep scepticism off his face. Derek just looked impassive.

“I mean, the Triskelion is many things, isn’t it?” Stiles nodded. “And your interpretation is clearly right because, boy, has the rebalancing worked. And it worked for you too, Derek?” Derek nodded, again pulling Stiles’s hand up in his, and this time brushing the back of Stiles’s hand with his lips. “But I think there may be other levels. We know Alpha, Beta, Omega. And we know past, present, future, right?” Stiles nodded. “I think there are three levels of love as well, which might be a part of this. I mean there is physical love, which we know about.” Scott was blushing deeply at this. Considering what had happened just last night, it was a bit much in Stiles’s view. They had all seen each other naked. “And then there is the romantic love, of soul mates. What I have with Allison. What you two have, or what I think you have.” Scott looked back and forth between Stiles and Derek “What I am sure you have. But then there is the love we have” Scott indicated the Stiles and himself. “Damon and Pythias, or something.” Stiles was having difficulty adjusting to this newly knowledgeable Scott. Scott seemed to notice. “I can use Google, bro. And Allison and I have talked about this a lot.”

Derek spoke up. He had been quiet for a long time. “I agree, there are many different forms of love. And not mutually exclusive forms of love. I don’t think I am an expert, mind you. And” a small smile at Stiles “I don’t think Stiles would claim to be an expert either. But, yes, it is possible. And it might be that we need to balance those forms of love as well. Though clearly Stiles’s rebalancing would seem to be most important to the Hales”.

“Right”. Scott seemed pleased. “All I am saying is that I think we need to remember that the Triskelion has many meanings. And I am saying, Derek, that we both betas in the same pack – in Stiles’s pack – and maybe we should try and think a bit more like pack brothers from time to time. I am not saying you and I will ever have what Stiles and I have. No one could ever replace Stiles” Scott smiled at Stiles at that “but I think we should think about it.”

Derek nodded.

“Good”. Scott got up, and briskly collected their plates. “Dessert is coming.”

As Scott left, Stiles noticed how bright Derek’s eyes had gotten again. “What is it?”. He was concerned.

“Scott reminds me – a lot – of my cousin Jacob.” Derek breathed in a huge breath, and seemed to calm himself. “Jacob was my mother’s sister’s kid. He inherited their pack’s traits – empathy, compassion. Scott is a lot like him.” Derek gave a rueful smile. “I had such a crush on him growing up. Of course, he never even noticed me, I was always some silly kid…”

“I know that feeling.” Stiles stood up and moved round the table, breaking his hold on Derek’s hand only to throw both arms around Derek’s neck and hug him, as he stood behind Derek’s chair.

Scott came back. “Chocolate mousse, homemade, with fresh strawberries and cream” he announced.

 

 

It was late when they finished. Stiles wrapped Scott into a tight hug. “Bro, there aren’t the words.” Stiles’s voice was muffled into Scott’s white shirt, and he absolutely was not going to admit to crying. 

“Stiles, you deserve every bit of happiness you can get. There is no one like you.” Scott was sounding choked too, but then pulled off an authoritative tone. Stiles could feel the rumble of Scott’s voice where he was hugging their chests together, and he felt Scott lift his head to look at Derek.

“Derek, I want you to listen to my heart beat, and listen to what I am going to tell you. If you ever, ever, hurt Stiles in any way whatsoever” Stiles tightened his grip and started to lift his head to protest “I will rip your throat out with my teeth.”

Derek was serious in his reply. “You listen to my heart beat too Scott. I am never, ever going to hurt Stiles. I could never hurt him. He is… he is everything.”

Scott huffed out a breath. “Just so we understand each other.” He squeezed Stiles tight, before releasing him and going over to slap Derek on the shoulder. “I am so happy for you both.” Scott then made a discreet exit into the kitchen.

Derek moved over to Stiles, and pulled him towards him. “I won’t hurt you again, I promise. I will tell you everything.”

“And I will tell you almost everything.” Derek paused in pulling Stiles against his body. “You don’t get to know my first name until after we are married and you can’t back out. Scott knows it, but he knows I will kill him if he reveals it.” Derek resumed pulling Stiles towards him.

“Is there no way I can get that information?”

“None” Stiles was certain.

Derek leant in to kiss him. It was a long, passionate kiss. Stiles’s degree of arousal was painful, and he could feel the pressure of Derek’s cock against his thigh – but he knew this was not the moment. They had still to talk about this side of things, but Stiles wanted to enjoy the romance before the physical side of their relationship, even if their relationship had a regular physical aspect to it. But that did not mean he was not above generating a little friction. He ground his hips forward, causing Derek to moan into his mouth, and push back.

They broke apart, breathing heavily and resting their foreheads against each other. Derek was hesitant “Do you want to come back to mine?” He sounded apprehensive.

“Not on a first date. How easy do you think I am, Mr Hale?”. Stiles leant in. “What we do for balance is one thing. What we do for us is another. I think...” What he thought was lost in Derek crushing their mouths together.

 

 

The kitchen door creaked, and there was a sudden “Oh” from Scott. His face, flushed red, was appearing round the corner of the door. “I thought you had left already”.

Stiles and Derek broke apart. Stiles looked across at his friend, and did a quick double take. “Just off Scotty. Come on out so we can say a proper good bye and thank you.”

Scott blushed even more furiously and seemed to try to retreat behind the door. “No, it is OK Stiles. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Stiles darted forward with a mischievous look on his face, and pulled the kitchen door open. Scott stood there, clad only in apron and bow tie, while holding a bowl of chocolate mousse, strawberries and cream.

“Please, please tell me Allison is upstairs” Stiles demanded. “I don’t think I can take any more weirdness in our relationship.”

Scott mumbled into the floor, while smiling his ‘Allison’ smile to himself.

Stiles looked even more mischievous. “Dude, go. We owe you for tonight. We will invite you over for a double date or something. But for now, off you go.” He held the kitchen door wide.

Scott shuffled his bare feet nervously. “No, you head off Stiles, I’ll…”

Stiles looked at him, his grin positively wicked.

“Fine”. Scott attempted a look of dignity, tucked the bowl of mousse more securely under his arm, and marched past Stiles in the direction of the stairs.

“I just wanted a chance to ogle that beautiful bubble butt” Stiles called after him, as the naked back of Scott headed towards the stairs. “The apron strings set it off wonderfully.”

Scott seemed to be trying to clench his ass as he walked up stairs.

“Love you, bro” Stiles called. With sincerity. He slipped his hand into Derek’s, and pulled him towards the front door.


	19. After the dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because apparently “we have two legs for a reason, Stiles.”

The day after the dinner started out awkward. Stiles had woken ecstatically happy because his boyfriend was Derek Hale, and who wouldn’t be ecstatically happy to have Derek Hale as a boyfriend? As he reached over to get his phone, he registered it was just gone nine in the morning and that he had a text message. His heart rate picked up a notch, then fell as he saw it was not from Derek. In fact there was no communication from Derek at all. No voice mail. No emoticon dotted text message (though if Stiles was to be honest emoticons from Derek were never likely). There was a text from Scott, which might have emoticons, although only if Scott had worked out how to use his phone properly in the last couple of days which was also not likely. Stiles opened it with some apprehension.

“Dude, u guys need to keep talking. Remember he likes u. Though after your butt jokes, I don’t. luv u.”

When Stiles got back from his shower, there was a text from Derek. No emoticons.

“Could you please meet me at the house after lunch? Say 1400? Derek.”

Derek clearly did not text very much. But he had texted Stiles. And all of a sudden Stiles’s world was sunshine and bluebirds and optimism. He texted back

“Dear Mr Hale, I would be delighted, Yours, Stiles Stilinski”.

Because Derek was going to have to get used to sarcasm in their relationship. Plus Stiles was hilarious. Plus Derek needed to learn how to text like a twenty first century human being, or a twenty first century werewolf, and not like a Jane Austen heroine experiencing a particularly heightened episode of repression.

Stiles was half an hour early, but Derek was even earlier – the Camaro parked neatly in parallel to the house. Stiles had got out of his Jeep, deliberately parked in a haphazard manner at an angle to the house. As he made his way towards Derek there was an awkward ‘how do we greet each other?’ moment that had ended in an equally awkward chaste little kiss on the cheek. And then they sat on the porch steps of the Hale house side by side without really speaking. Awkward silence seemed to be becoming a bit of a thing. Stiles remembered what Scott had texted.

“So”. He stood up and clambered down the steps, turning to face Derek. “I think we need to talk. But just remember that I want this to work. Like, really, really want this to work. And I think you do to. So let us go for a walk, and try and sort out where we are.”

Derek got slowly to his feet. “I am no good at this”.

“Well, duh”. Stiles was absolutely certain this was a ‘Well, duh’ moment. “Like I am an expert? Clearly you are a complete Failwolf when it comes to relationships, but equally clearly I am a Failstiles. So we are even.”

Derek smiled a little and came down the steps to where Stiles stood. “OK, let’s walk. And talk.”

“If you are sure you can do both things at the same time?” Derek tried to glower at that.

They both reached out to hold the other’s hand simultaneously, and entirely naturally. And with the warmth and reassurance of that touch, the awkwardness just melted away.

 

 

Two weeks after the dinner, the rebalancing was bad, but it could have been worse. Scott and Stiles had had sex the night before – fun, enthusiastic sex that had involved the inauguration of the paddle – for both of them. Nothing too forceful, and Scott had stayed over afterwards to indulge in a Star Wars videofest. 

When Derek came over the following night, neither he nor Stiles knew how to act. The previous two weeks had involved lots of kissing, which was great in Stiles’s view. Derek had a trick of gently catching Stiles’s lower lip between his teeth mid kiss which Stiles loved – it brought all sorts of swirly feelings into his stomach. And maybe a rush of blood to the groin area from time to time. But they had to go from soppy intimacy and arousing-kissing-but-nothing-more to hard core sex in zero time. 

Derek stood naked in Stiles’s room looking at the floor, trembling slightly like a dog about to be washed. And Stiles could not even make the dog jokes, because he felt as bad. Eventually he walked over to Derek, wrapping his arms around him. 

“This… this thing is not us. We will work up to lovemaking. In the meantime, in the words of a wise werewolf, this is just sex, OK? We need to compartmentalise this part of our lives for now. But it won’t always be this bad, I promise.”

Derek nodded – Stiles could feel his chin rubbing up and down against his neck as he inclined his head. 

“So, let us try and get through this. What will help? What will make it easier?”

“Talk to me”. Derek was whispering. “It reminds me who I am with, and it reminds me I am with someone I love.”

That was the first time Derek had said he loved Stiles. Stiles had blurted it out at the dinner, but had not said it since.

“Oh, my God. I love you too, you know that? Of course you know that. You must be able to smell it or hear it or... And talking, I can do. This may not be where we want to be right now, but we can make this work.”

The sex was better than it had been, but Derek still shied away when Stiles tried to touch him afterwards. Stiles understood why, but it still hurt; he wanted to hug Derek, to tell him everything was OK, and to feel Derek’s warmth seeping into him. He wanted to wake up entwined in Derek. Even though Stiles knew it was something they would have to work through over time, the pain did not dissipate until the next day, when Derek met him straight after lacrosse training and kissed him very passionately, and very publically.

 

Three weeks after the dinner, Derek insisted they break the news to the sheriff. Stiles was all for ongoing denial – perhaps for a decade or so, or maybe until they got married, whichever came sooner. Unless the wedding came sooner, because a decade really wasn’t that long to wait if the alternative was a conversation with his dad.

“I can’t”. Stiles was pretty sure he couldn’t. “The shock, to a man of his age, with his heart condition, it could kill him.”

Derek looked at Stiles. “Your father has no heart condition. I can hear his heart, remember? Perfectly fine. It is just you fussing.”

“Yeah, well admitting I am in love with a ‘person of interest’ could kill me. Literally kill me. He has guns.”

“And he loves you. And I love you. And it is probably a good thing that we all admit that to one another. Though why either of us do love you is a mystery…” The effect of Derek’s words was somewhat negated by the passionate kiss that followed it. “I’ll wait outside, so if he pulls a gun I can throw myself heroically in front of the bullet. “

So, Sunday morning Stiles was grilling bacon and spreading low fat spread onto wholemeal bread in anticipation of his dad’s appearance. The sheriff entered the kitchen with a somewhat bewildered expression, sniffing expectantly.

“It that bacon? Real bacon? Not soya bacon and some kind of spray bacon air freshener?”

“There is no such thing as soya bacon. And there is no such thing as bacon air freshener. Grilled bacon, on wholemeal bread with low fat spread.”

“Stiles… what have you done?”

Crap, this was not a good start. “Why would you assume I had done anything? It hurts me that my own beloved father would assume that I am preparing him breakfast out of some kind of ulterior motive. Why would I have done anything?” Stiles tried to replicate Scott’s puppy eyes look. It did not appear to be working.

“You only ever make me bacon sandwiches on my birthday, and at Christmas. What have you done? You’ve crashed the jeep again? No, it was fine last night. You’ve been expelled from school? What is it?”

“You have surprisingly little faith in your son and heir”. Stiles was too nervous to sound properly indignant, as he put the sandwich in front of his dad. He waited until the sheriff had taken a bite and had his mouth full.

“So, I might be dating someone”.

The sheriff raised an eyebrow and swallowed. “OK. So who is he?”

“He’s… wait… you know he’s a he?”

The sheriff let out a sigh. “Now you are dressing like that, yes, I thought the odds were in favour of it being a he. Who is he? That Danny kid?”

Stiles heard a faint growl from outside. “Ummm, no. ‘He’ doesn’t go to my school.” At least, not any more. But that bit could be unspoken.

“Come on Stiles, don’t keep me in suspense. Who?”

“It’s…” Stiles, gulped a little, tugging at the Lydia approved form fitting T shirt he was wearing “well, it’s… it’s… Derek Hale. And before you say anything he was completely cleared of all charges.”

The sheriff paused, and looked up from his plate. “Derek Hale?”

Stiles nodded.

“And you really like him?”

“I…. yes… I like him quite a bit actually.” Stiles could feel himself flushing bright red. “I like him a lot. And I think he likes me a lot.”

The sheriff eyed his son speculatively. “And you really think an announcement like that is a one bacon sandwich statement? I would have called it as a two sandwich statement.”

Stiles felt weak with relief. His dad was smiling a little.

“If that is Mr Hale’s shadow I see lurking outside, call him in so I can be intimidating and threatening and generally overbearing, and put on another round of bacon. For me. Derek Hale does not get bacon until after I have done threatening him.”

 

 

Four weeks, four days after the dinner Stiles found out what Derek’s theme tune for him was. He was calling Derek’s mobile after school, because he wanted to hear Derek’s voice, when he heard a phone ringing out a suspiciously eighties soundtrack. He spun round to see Derek lurking a couple of paces behind him.

“Gaaah.” The phone going off had been a bit of a giveaway, but Stiles had also jumped noticeably on seeing Derek. “Still with the lurking.”

“You love me the way I am, and wouldn’t change me if you could.” Derek was smiling complacently. A leather clad Greek god of smugness, in Stiles’s view. Was there a Greek god of smugness? He would have to check.

“What was that ring tone?”

Derek looked a little shifty. “It was something my mom used to sing. She had a whole load of eighties songs she used to sing around the house, and this one… seemed to fit.”

Stiles’s curiosity overcame his entirely imagined offence at Derek lurking. “What is it?”

Derek shuffled his feet a bit. “I am not going to tell you. It will just inflate your already huge ego.”

Stiles was offended. “I have no ego. I am as ego free as anyone this awesome can be. What is it?”

Derek shuffled again. “It is by Furniture. ‘You must be out of your brilliant mind.’“

Stiles preened.

Derek glowered. “I knew it would inflate your ego.”

 

 

Five weeks and two days after the dinner, and Stiles arrived home in a filthy mood. He had had chemistry. Harris had been foul. Harris had put Stiles in detention for no earthly reason. Dark clouds of angry frustration were hovering over Stiles’s head, and he could not swear that there were not lightning bolts of fury too.

He threw himself on the bed when he heard Derek coming through the window. It was something to lighten his mood, and his heart gave a leap of pleasure, soured only by the fact that this would have happened a lot sooner if Harris had not been so irrationally awful as a person.

Derek seemed to pick up on his mood. “Tough day at work, honey?”

Stiles was so not in the right frame of mind. “Do not even start, Hale.”

Derek bent over to kiss Stiles lightly on the mouth. “I can smell the frustration rolling off you. And not the good kind of frustration either.”

“There is no good kind of frustration.”

Derek smiled at him. “I have something to cheer you up. Stay there.” He walked over to Stiles’s computer, searched for a moment and booted something up. There was a high pitched, upbeat music track that Stiles found vaguely familiar, and then elven voices suddenly started singing like they were on helium.

‘The true Hale alpha can only mean’

Stiles gulped.

‘The master of the three Cs of the tree cassyn’.

The song was on a repeat loop, and animated Derek was dancing on the computer screen behind real Derek. Who suddenly was dancing in synch with animated Derek behind him.

Stiles’s mouth fell open. “You are….” Derek carried on dancing, giving Stiles a quick wink as he went through the routine, copying each move of Stiles’s animation to perfection. Stiles scrambled off the bed and hit the replay button.

“Again. And I have got to capture this for Scott.” He got out his phone to video the whole song and dance routine. Derek glowered at him momentarily, and went through the routine again.

As it finished a second time, Derek looked over at Stiles, who was convulsed in fits of giggles. 

“Feeling happier?”

“Dude totally. But how did you even know?”

“You told me to trawl through the laptop for bestiary translations, remember? I came across that file, labelled ‘wild beast’, and…”

Stiles stared at Derek. “And you did that for me?”

Derek looked back at him. “If you promise not to show the next video to Scott, and certainly not to your dad?”

Stiles looked expectantly up at him. Derek hit the replay again, and started to perform a high speed strip tease to the tune.

At the conclusion Derek stood wearing his just his briefs. Stiles rushed to hug him. “Best boyfriend ever”. He paused. "Wait, when did you start wearing briefs?" 

"I might have planned on doing the dance, and bought some specially." 

Stiles could feel Derek’s hardness beneath him, and was making no attempt to disguise his own arousal. 

Derek whispered into his ear “Not yet. Soon, but I am not…”

Stiles whispered back “I know… Still best boyfriend ever.”

 

 

Seven weeks after the dinner, and Derek held a house warming at his apartment. He had been ordered to by Lydia. Stiles had brought her over to Derek’s to distract her from buying him ever tighter T shirts, and one look at the barren wasteland that was Derek’s apartment had served as a perfect distraction. Stiles was a genius, who would now not have to paint his T shirts onto his body.

“Minimalism is fine, but you take it too far. I want a credit card, a budget, a budget to exceed the budget, and half an hour to judge whether you have enough taste to be asked for your opinion on furnishing.” Lydia glanced suddenly up at Derek “And do NOT try to intimidate me with a glare.”

So now there was a long , sleek couch, some chairs that Lydia said were Eames chairs, and an artistic black and white photograph blown up to huge proportions on one wall. It looked like someone’s mouth on top of a wire mesh fence, and it had taken Stiles five minutes of staring at it to realise it was a close shot photo of him chewing on his lacrosse stick. Artistic, but a little weird.

Stiles was late coming over, as he had needed to collect his flat warming gift. And there had been some unexpected weirdness associated with that. Scott, Allison, Boyd, Danny, Lydia and Isaac were there before him. He struggled up the stairs before depositing a largish round parcel on the glass and steel table Lydia had acquired from some expensive Italian boutique.

Derek reached across to kiss him gently, before lightly tugging on his lower lip in the way that always got Stiles excited. “And what is this?”

“A present. Lydia will hate it because it will not work with her décor, but…”

Derek pulled at the paper, and the mahogany turntable of the Manx sourced, Triskelion embellished Lazy Susan was revealed.

Lydia gave voice to her opinion, while Derek seemed temporarily at a loss for words. “Actually, Stiles, a classic piece will add just the right touch of eclecticism”. 

Derek seemed to be struggling to say anything. He clearly recognised the antique, and knew where it came from. “But… Stiles… that must have cost a fortune… I mean I don’t deserve…”

“It is something from your family. And I know you don’t have much from your family. And while manacles as mementos are great, I thought something from your family we could have on display…” Derek’s eyes were looking bright again. “And although you do deserve it, it did not cost a fortune. Actually that was a bit weird. Alf from Alf’s Antiques let me have it at a knock down price – he said he felt we had known each other in some alternate universe or other world or something, and that it belonged to me.”

Derek pulled Stiles into a hug.

“And he also sent across these, for free.”

Stiles pulled out a mahogany box. Resting inside were two ceramic figures of wolves – one sleek and black, mouth opened in a snarl, and a blue earthy looking wolf with a faded cracked glaze. 

“He said he thought I was a person who could manage to tame a pair of wolves, and that these were for me personally. I didn’t tell him anything about us, obviously, but he seemed to know something somehow.”

Derek kept hugging Stiles, whispering so quietly that even werewolf hearing would not pick it up. “Of course you can tame werewolves. You can do anything. You are the true Hale alpha.”

 

 

Seven weeks and two hours after the dinner, Stiles and Derek made love for the first time. And it was awesome and intimate, and unashamed, and unrestrained. It was also awesome seven weeks two hours and fifty five minutes after the dinner. And awesome in an exhausting, bliss inducing way seven weeks five hours and ten minutes after the dinner. Seven weeks and a day after the dinner, Stiles woke up completely entangled with Derek. Which was also awesome.

 

 

Five months after the dinner Stiles was in Derek’s bed – no, their bed – in Derek’s ski lodge in the mountains. Because apparently, the Hales had property everywhere. Derek had insisted they visit the lodge as often as possible so he could, quote “exorcise the evil demon of snowboarding” out of Stiles’s system for ever. Because apparently “we have two legs for a reason, Stiles.” So Stiles had skied. And was surprisingly graceful at it.

Derek lay resplendently naked on the crisp white bed linen – holding Stiles’s left hand tightly in his right hand and smiling up in a way that was unbelievably sexy – in Stiles’s impartial opinion. Stiles was straddling the werewolf beneath him, revelling in the little shots of pure ecstasy as the alpha’s cock pushed forcefully against his prostate. The new moon was just visible through the window above the mountain ridge. Stiles knew if he was not careful he was going to come first, so with deliberate spasm of his muscles and a contraction of his pert ass cheeks (for Stiles knew he could claim pertness in that department), he worked at bringing the werewolf to a climax first. 

It took three clenches before there was a deep growling that Stiles still mentally referred to as “yipping”, and Scott came explosively inside Stiles. Stiles could feel the warm wetness, and gently slowed his rocking before leaning forwards to nuzzle at Scott’s neck. Derek lay beside Scott, the fingers of his right hand still tightly intertwined with Stiles’s left. Derek was hard – Stiles had a clear view of his cock stretching up his ab muscles from his vantage point near Scott’s neck.

Scott, who had subsided into quiet panting suddenly arched his hips up wildly and let out a moan of painful ecstasy.

Stiles sat up and reached his free hand over to slap Derek. “Hey, beta boy, are you still fingering the puppy?”

Derek smiled innocently, and Scott writhed again.

Stiles slapped at Derek again. “You know how sensitive the puppy gets after sex. Fingers out, now”. Derek smilingly complied. Stiles gently dragged the nails of his right hand over Scott’s stomach, watching with amusement as Scott’s muscles twitched in a reflex action as he came closer and closer to Scott’s softening but clearly sensitive cock. He suddenly grabbed at the head, and flicked his thumb over it a couple of times. Scott tried to roll to one side to evade him.

“There, there puppy. Your turn soon. But as you have been so good…” Stiles shook a couple of drips of pre-cum onto Scott – a preliminary marking action that helped to bring on some of the high of a rebalancing (or so Scott and Derek both told him).

Derek made a whining noise, and Stiles looked down at Scott. 

“So, puppy, do you want to start fingering your pack brother?”

Scott nodded with his typical enthusiasm. It always amazed Stiles how focused on rebalancing Scott could be.

“I think a little scissor action would not go amiss, either. Teach the beta some bedside manners.”

Scott grinned malevolently, and reached over for the lube. Stiles shuffled over so he straddled Derek’s waist. Derek moved to gently insert his cock into Stiles, but Stiles pushed him back down.

“Not yet. You were a bad beta. You wait until your pack brother has brought you close.”

Derek whined again, and then hissed out as Scott slipped a finger into him. Stiles leant down, and licked a long trail from the middle portion of Derek’s abs –starting tantalisingly just above the tip of his cock, before concluding at his neck.

“Do you want to be inside me, slipping into me knowing I am all slick with the cub’s cum?” Derek’s eyes registered pure pleasure. “All the while knowing that your pack brother has his fingers inside you?” Another intake of breath. Stiles was guessing a second finger. “Knowing that the Hale alpha pack is entirely in balance?”

Derek was now frantically moving his hips up towards Stiles. Scott was clearly scissoring inside him, and was as enthusiastic as ever. Scott’s soft cock was pushed against the hard flank of Stiles’s right thigh, and Scott had a hand trailing up and down Stiles’s arm. Derek was leaking copious amounts of pre-cum, and whining a continuous hum now. His grip on Stiles’s left hand tightened almost painfully.

Stiles seized Derek’s cock, slightly roughly, and pulled it into him before pushing down sharply with his hips. “Can you feel where the cub has come inside of me?” Derek nodded weakly. “Do you want to come inside of me as well, and mix your cum together in me?” A choked moan from Derek, pushing his hips up as Scott worked away underneath.

“Come on then, beta boy. Let us see if you can match him.” Stiles could feel Derek’s heat coursing through him, and squeezed sharply with his muscles. He could feel he had caught the tip of Derek’s cock and gave an extra vigorous squeeze. Derek made a choked noise in his throat, and came with force.

Scott rolled slightly away from Derek, removing his fingers, before sliding closer to him and looking up expectantly at Stiles. Stiles gently lifted himself off of Derek, before reaching down to nuzzle his neck as he had done with Scott. He then sat back on his haunches and looked down at the pair of them. He was achingly erect, and in no mood to delay things much longer, but he gave a somewhat pointed glance at the two wolves splayed out on the bed beneath him and waited for their reaction. 

Scott and Derek moved closer to each other, wrapping their arms around each other and nuzzling into each other’s necks. After a minute or so, Stiles said softly “OK boys, enough bro bonding.” 

Still with their arms around each other, but without the nuzzling, Derek and Scott put their faces close together and looked up at Stiles. Stiles saw that Scott was already half hard – the dude was insatiable, honestly. Positioning himself with one leg between each of theirs, Stiles began to jerk himself off. He could feel himself very close – the work on his prostate had been particularly stimulating this evening, and he could feel the slight dampness of the wolves’ cum seeping down his inner thigh as a reminder. He rubbed his thumb around the head of his dick in a practised move, and closed his eyes as the wave of orgasm started to build in him. He forced his eyes open as the wave crested and broke. It was important to distribute the cum relatively evenly between the faces of the two wolves. Derek and Scott panted in unison as Stiles splashed across their cheeks.  
Stiles eked out the last drops of cum, and then face planted forwards between them into the softness of the mattress, hemmed in by the two wolves’ bodies.

“Balanced, boys?”

Stiles’s voice was muffled by the pillow. He felt Derek gently stroke his back, while Scott gave him a wet kiss on his earlobe – of all places, honestly… - and said “you are the best, Stiles.” 

They lay for some minutes, enjoying the afterglow (for Stiles), the high (for the wolves) and the quiet rhythm of their own breathing. Suddenly Scott pushed himself up.

“I have dinner to get ready.”

Stiles looked sideways at him. Scott was now fully hard again, and trying to conceal it. “Uh huh. Going to shower first?” Stiles looked at him. “Well, enjoy yourself…”

Scott tried and failed to look dignified as he headed for his bathroom.

Derek pulled the duvet up over the himself and Stiles, swaddling them both in its warmth, and rested his forehead against Stiles’s.

“Well, Mr Stilinski.”

“Well, Mr Hale”

“Another chore over and done with?

Stiles moved his head to nip at Derek’s ear, before chasing tiny kisses and bites alternately down his neck to his shoulder.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that? I could see you enjoying that. And I know you get a high from the rebalancing.”

Derek rubbed his stubble suddenly against the back of Stiles’s neck.

“Scott gets extra points for enthusiasm. And I do enjoy the pack time. But I enjoy our time more.”

Stiles moved down Derek’s torso with his mouth, sliding his head beneath the duvet as he worked his way lower. Partly to avoid the stubble burn he could feel. “Shall we see how much more you enjoy it?”

“Do you ever slow down?”

“Dude, you should be grateful I have enough energy to spend a day skiing, satisfy the irrepressible need for balance from not one – mark that – not one but two alpha werewolves, and then spend the entire night making mad and passionate love to my older lover. Only someone as awesome as me could ever attempt all of that, far less manage it with the skill and dexterity I bring to the party.“ Stiles brought his head up from underneath the duvet, and kissed Derek on the lips – holding onto Derek’s head with both hands. Derek brought a hand up behind Siltes’s head, pushing them together.

There was a sudden “Awwwww” from behind them. Scott was standing, slightly damp and clad in a towel. He had been retrieving his boxers from the lampshade they had come to rest on, on the far side of the room. “I just came for my clothes and my phone. I need to check when Allison will be getting here tomorrow. But you guys are so cute…”

Stiles grinned evilly against Derek’s mouth, and suddenly kicked out with one leg. The duvet slid off of the pair of them, and Stiles began grinding his hips into Derek forcefully.

“Dude! Gross! I do not want to see that. Ugh. Don’t.”

Stiles rolled off Derek so that he was lounging by his side. Both their erections were on clear display. Scott was shielding his eyes theatrically with one hand. “Dude, you have just come inside of me, quite spectacularly I might add, while having Derek finger you. What is a little frottage between friends?”

“Stiles…” Scott was pleading. “Rebalancing is rebalancing. You and Derek are personal. It feels wrong seeing that sort of intimacy… I don’t want to intrude when you are lovers”. Scott was blushing furiously. Even his shoulders seemed to be flushing.

“You are such a prude, Scott McCall.”

Scott had gathered his clothes and was hastily moving towards the door. “Dinner is in an hour. Don’t be late, the chicken will go dry.”

Stiles turned to Derek. “So we have an hour…” Derek rolled across Stiles and bent over the side of the bed to reclaim the duvet from the floor. “

“Well, if you are just going to offer yourself like that to me…” Stiles wrapped two arms around Derek’s waist.

 

Half an hour later Stiles lay curled around Derek’s back, the toned, firm musculature of his legs hopelessly entwined with the massive solidity of Derek’s. Scott had just shouted, from a safe distance and a flight of stairs away, to remind them dinner was ready soon; they would have to get up and shower. Stiles would not willingly be late for Scott’s roast chicken. But for another five minutes, Stiles was content to lie next to his lover, tracing the Triskelion tattoo on Derek’s back with his long fingers. Scott had a similar design on the side of his body now – proof he was a true Hale alpha. Stiles’s suggestion that Scott get it on his butt, as there would be more room, had resulted in a day long sulk from Scott which had taken much diplomatic grovelling from Stiles to put right. Stiles’s version was smaller and more discreet, on the inside of his thigh near the top.

Stiles breathed a kiss into the back of Derek’s neck. He wondered if there were other levels to the Triskelion that he could uncover, that would strengthen the bond of the three Hale alphas. Scott’s insight into the different forms of love had been right – it was an insight that only Scott had been capable of uncovering. Stiles felt a warm surge of emotion at having a friend that could and would uncover the truth for him. Scott had teased Stiles that only Stiles could have implemented the balance of love, as only Stiles had the trifecta of clear eyes, full heart, perfect face – but Stiles knew he had needed Scott to uncover the truth for him. With another feather light kiss to the back of Derek’s neck, Stiles stroked Derek’s arm in preparation for pushing him into the shower. He felt the electric tingle of excitement that he always got from touching Derek, even in the most casual of manners. He knew Derek could hear the stutter of his heart that he absurdly experienced in every quiet moment like this. 

Stiles was definitely going to have to research the Triskelion further. It demanded more detailed inquiry. And Stiles had an inquiring mind.

 

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment and offer kudos, and generally bear with me over the past couple of months. I know the story line was not exactly what everyone wanted, but I hope the tags gave suitable warning and that no one felt too let down by the ending. Constructive criticism is always welcome, of course.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> There are (not terribly subtle) references to work by mm_coconut and zosofi, whose extraordinary talents deserve the widest possible audience. I hope they will take the allusions as flattery and not as any attempt at plagiarism. 
> 
> There really was a Thos. Hale was born in 1840, where the story says. The special words are real and the translations are generally accurate. The Conan-Doyle and Agatha Christie references are also true (the Arthur Conan-Doyle story is far and away the better of the two). 
> 
> And yes, the sex is coming...


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